The MYRRHA Project

The main objective of MYRRHA (Multi-purpose hybrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) at SCK•CEN, the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, is to demonstrate the large scale feasibility of nuclear waste transmutation using an Accelerator Driven System (ADS). It is based on a high power cw operated 600 MeV proton Linac with an average beam power of 2.4 MW. Due to the coupling of the accelerator with a fast reactor, a major concern is reliability and availability of the accelerator. Only 10 beam trips longer than 3 s are allowed per 3-month operation cycle, resulting in an overall required Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of at least 250 hours. The MYRRHA Linac consists of a room temperature 17 MeV Injector based on CH-cavities and the superconducting main Linac using different RF structures as Single Spokes, Double-Spokes and elliptical cavities. In 2017 it has been decided to stage the project and to start with the construction of a 100 MeV Linac (Injector and Single Spoke section) including a 400 kW proton target station. This facility will be operational in 2026 aiming to evaluate the reliability potential of the 600 MeV Linac. The FrontEnd consisting of an ECR source, LEBT and 1.5 MeV RFQ is already operational while the first 7 CH-cavities are under construction. The presentation gives an overview about the MYRRHA Project, its challenges and the status of construction and testing