Russia Delivers First Steam Generator for MBIR Fast Neutron Research Reactor

Recently, the Podolsk Machine-Building Plant (ZiO-Podolsk), a subsidiary of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom), has officially completed the manufacture and delivery of the first of two steam generators for the Multipurpose Fast Neutron Research Reactor (MBIR). The unit is currently under intensive construction at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (NIIAR) in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Oblast.

It is reported that as the world's largest 150 MW sodium-cooled fast neutron research reactor of its kind, the MBIR employs a unique three-circuit heat transfer scheme and a counter-flow steam generator design, with its technology continuing and optimizing the experience from the BOR-60 reactor, which has been operating smoothly for decades. Each steam generator, weighing 9 tonnes and measuring over 9 meters in length, serves as a core bridge between the sodium circuit and the steam-water circuit, and will effectively ensure thermal-hydraulic safety under extreme operating loads.

With the successive arrival of key equipment including the reactor pressure vessel and the first steam generator, the MBIR project is comprehensively advancing system circuit integration, with comprehensive commissioning and first criticality planned for 2027 to 2028. In the future, the facility will serve as a core international platform for validating fourth-generation nuclear reactor designs, testing mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, and closed nuclear fuel cycle technologies.

Under the mechanism of the International Research Center consortium, numerous research institutions and enterprises worldwide, including Rosatom, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), and the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), have officially joined the cooperation. The completion and commissioning of the MBIR will significantly shorten global nuclear energy R&D cycles and provide irreplaceable super-experimental support for international civil nuclear energy technology innovation.