Nuclear propulsion of submarines and aircraft carriers,
a matter of national sovereignty

In 1954, the commissioning of the USS Nautilus, the first submarine with nuclear propulsion, is the starting point of an innovative and primordial sector. The first French one, "Le Redoutable", proceeds to sea in March 1967. The CEA as project owner is in charge of French nuclear propulsion program in collaboration with the Armament General Directorate. The execution and conception control is guaranteed by two major industrial companies: TechnicAtome as nuclear core and reactor designer, and Naval Group, formerly DCNS, as ship architect, pressurized circuits manufacturer and in charge of maintenance. By the way, in the seventies, engineers of the subsidiary of the CEA, Technicatome (now TechnicAtome), have developed a new wised concept of nuclear reactor: a compact nuclear reactor in which the steam generator is in the same tank than the core. Thanks to it, the world smallest nuclear submarines are the French Rubis-class attack submarines.

Since 2000, TechnicAtome and the CATHARE team collaborate to improve nuclear propulsion safety and efficiency. In this frame, specific correlations are implemented in the code and specific models are created to simulate the primary side and the containment. Besides, several of these models are daily tested according to the standard rigorous method of CATHARE development.

On October 10, 2018 at 11h52, in the secret nuclear installation in Cadarache (France), the RES (test reactor) diverged. It is built in line with terrestrial reactors after more than 20 years of development. It is designed as a R&D tool equipped with a rich measurement instrumentation. It is a real opportunity to qualify and improve the CATHARE code in a lot of situations specific to this application.

The nuclear-powered attack submarine, the Suffren, the first of the fifth Barracuda-class, is unveiled on July 12, 2019 in Cherbourg, in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron. We are proud to participate even in indirect ways to such awesome project through the use of the CATHARE code and are glad to continue supporting the sector by improving the code and suggesting the solutions as best as possible.