Storage of Thermal REactor Safety Analysis Data - Tools, experiments and data

The experimental data recorded in Integral Effect Test Facilities (ITFs) are traditionally used in order to validate Best Estimate (BE) system codes and to investigate the behaviour of Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) under accident scenarios. In the same way, facilities dedicated to specific thermal-hydraulic (TH) Severe Accident (SA) phenomena are used for the development and improvement of specific analytical models and codes used in the SA analysis for Light Water Reactors (LWR). The extent to which the existing reactor safety experimental databases are preserved was well known and frequently debated and questioned in the nuclear community. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) has been deeply involved in several projects for experimental data production and experimental data preservation. The JRC was engaged during decades in relevant SA experimental projects: The FARO, KROTOS facilities simulated Melt Fuel Coolant Interaction (MFCI) phenomena, considering either in-vessel (quenching) and ex-vessel (spreading) experiments and potential situations for steam explosions. The STORM facility simulated experiments in the area of aerosol transport. Also in the area of pure THs (ITFs) the JRC LOBI facility and its project produced data of 70 experiments simulating different accidents and transients in a PWR model. In this context the STRESA (Storage of Thermal REactor Safety Analysis Data) web-based informatics platform was developed by JRC-Ispra in the year 2000 with the main objective to disseminate documents and experimental data from large in-house JRC scientific projects, and has been extensively used in order to provide a secure repository of experimental data. At present the JRC STRESA database is hosted and maintained by JRC-Petten. At present time the Nuclear Reactor Safety Assessment Unit (NRSA) of the JRC-Petten is engaged in the development of a new STRESA tool to secure EU storage for SA experimental data and calculations. The development of this new STRESA tool should be completed by the end of 2014. The target is to keep the main features of the existing STRESA structure but using the new informatics technologies that are nowadays available and providing new capabilities (assuring information security, implementing European Commission informatics standards, making available more information and links to other databases existing in EU countries to the public, implementing an advanced faceted search to filter and locate the data available in the information system and introducing communication tools such as forum and private messaging for connecting and engaging users with new tools for sharing knowledge). All JRC's experimental data will be physically located in JRC-IET servers in Petten and possibility will be given to institutions willing to do so to use also this new STRESA tool to store their own data. For institutions willing to use this new STRESA tool, all data will be physically also stored in JRC-IET servers in Petten but release or modification of these data will remain always under the sole responsibility of the Institution owning the data. The objective of the paper is to describe, further disseminate and promote the usage of the new STRESA database containing these experimental data and to demonstrate long-term importance of well-maintained experimental databases for the nuclear preservation of knowledge.