SESSION V - ADS Experiments and Test Facilities

The GUINEVERE project is a European project in the framework of FP6 IP-EUROTRANS. The IP-EUROTRANS project aims at addressing the main issues for ADS development in the framework of partitioning and transmutation for nuclear waste volume and radiotoxicity reduction. The GUINEVERE project is carried out in the context of Domain 2 of IP-EUROTRANS, ECATS, devoted to specific experiments for the coupling of an accelerator, a target and a subcritical core. These experiments should provide an answer to the questions of on-line reactivity monitoring, subcriticality determination and operational procedures (loading, start-up, shutdown, etc.) in an ADS by 2009-2010. The GUINEVERE project will make use of the VENUS reactor, serving as a lead fast critical facility, coupled to a continuous beam accelerator. In order to achieve this goal, the VENUS facility has to be adapted and a modified GENEPI-C accelerator has to be designed and constructed. During the years 2007 and 2008, the VENUS facility will be modified in order to allow the experimental programme to start in 2009. The paper describes the main achievements with regard to the modifications for the VENUS facility.