The ETSON network has decided to reward contributions every year written by a team of young engineers and researchers from the various technical safety organisations (TSOs) and EUROSAFE members by offering ETSON Awards.

This year, four finalist teams (with researchers from LEI, BelV, PSI and IRSN) were selected. After an evaluation by a jury composed of five experts from TSO members of ETSON, a live scientific video slam was organized by the "Junior Staff Program" on November 3. Despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, 80 participants in this event were able to vote for the best presentation.

The winner is Samuel Peillon from IRSN (France) with his team cooperating with CEA and CNRS for their study of the behavior of tritiated dust in fusion reactors such as ITER or the Cadarache Tokamak.

The second prize is obtained by Audrius Graževičius from LEI (Lithuania) in team with Anis Bousbia-Salah from BelV (Belgium) for their study on the comparison of CFD and 3D codes of thermal-hydraulics to predict the natural circulation in a small test pool of fuel elements.

Mr. Uwe Stoll, President of ETSON, with Mr. Jean-Christophe Niel (IRSN) and Mr. Michel Van haesedonck (BelV) congratulated the winners and the two other teams for the high scientific level and quality of their work.

ETSON’s Junior Staff Program aims to enable young engineers and researchers from TSOs to get to know each other better, to improve their technical knowledge through international collaboration, and to develop their own European network of safety experts, in order to strengthen the cooperation among TSOs.

Papers of the winning teams:

Peillon S., Gelain T., Gensdarmes F. (IRSN), Payet M., Grisolia C. (CEA), Pluchery O. (Sorbonne CNRS): From plasma facing components to airborne radioactive dust: A study on the behavior of tritiated dust in fusion reactors

Graževičius A. (LEI), Bousbia-Salah A. (BelV): Comparative study of CFD and 3D thermal-hydraulic system codes in predicting natural circulation phenomena in a small-scale pool test facility