EPR core design Original Research Article

The nuclear industry has to face the increasing impact of deregulation, competition and new products like the EPR have to rely on all possible means to reduce the generation costs for compensating the high initial investment. As far as the core is concerned this reduction of generation costs is obtained mainly under given power level boundary conditions by increasing the burn-up of the fuel and by providing the margins needed to the operator to adopt all types of fuel managements which will allow to maximize the availability of the plant. Essentials of the EPR core design basis and some representative results of basic design neutronic and thermal hydraulic studies are described in the present paper for illustrating the potentials of the EPR under the boundary conditions prevailing at the end of the Basic Design Phase.