Philippe Dufeil holds an engineering diploma (master’s degree). He is graduated from “Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electricité et de Mécanique (ENSEM)” of Nancy, France, part of the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine, with specialization in Fluid Mechanics and Heat Science.

He joined the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Grenoble, France, as a thermal-hydraulics research engineer in 1994, within the team in charge of the CATHARE 2 software development and its validation. He took part in the needed works to integrate CATHARE 2 in simulators. He was in charge of the CATHARE 2 input data decks representative of 900 and 1,300 MWe nuclear power plant for a future use in simulators. He achieved and analyzed several types of accidental transients that could occur on PWR, and developed a radio-chemical transport model in the CATHARE 2 software.

In 1999, he joined the Radiological and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN) in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, as engineer in charge of safety studies and manager of the SIPA engineering simulator with its configuration including CATHARE 2 software. Then in 2003, as the Assistant Head of the Laboratory, he was in charge of the IRSN engineering simulators management to guarantee their uses for studies in support of safety evaluations, trainings for Nuclear Safety Authority staff and national emergency response exercises preparations. He was also the Department Quality Head in charge of Quality procedures implementation to prepare the Iso-9001 certification for IRSN and its quality system management (obtained in 2007). In 2005, he was appointed as IRSN project manager for simulator renovation project, in collaboration with AREVA-NP (now Framatome) and the Canadian company L‑3 COMMUNICATIONS MAPPS, global market leader for nuclear power plant simulators. Thus the Simulator for Observation of Functional in Incidental and Accidental situations (SOFIA) was developed with CATHARE 2 software integrated in 900, 1,300, 1,450 MWe and EPR configurations.

Since 2014, he joined again the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Saclay, France, for its experience with CATHARE 2 software. He was in charge of the validation of the CATHARE 2 and CATHARE 3 software, validation based on Integral Effect Tests (IET) and System and Industrial Tests (SIT). He is CEA expert in the area of thermal hydraulics of nuclear reactors, safety studies and nuclear power plant simulators. Until 2019, he was the CEA correspondent for a working group over new methodology for Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) transient studies, involving French partners EDF and Framatome. Now he is also responsible for a working group in charge of the evaluation of the resistance of the reactor vessel in case of Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS) situations due to the Emergency Core Cooling Systems (ECCS) actuation. Moreover, he is the correspondent of the Department for Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and Passive Safety Systems thematic. Since 2020, he is also the CEA correspondent to prepare the CATHARE 3 software integration in innovative simulator platforms.