DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
Cutting-edge engineering for the nuclear industry
TechnicAtome designs nuclear reactors and provides engineering services for complex nuclear systems, ranging from program management to turnkey delivery.
Our expertise in design engineering
Over 50 years of expertise
Over 100 specialties
24 reactors designed and constructed
Unique multidisciplinary expertise
TechnicAtome has expertise in all aspects of nuclear reactor design. Our engineers cover more than 100 technical specialties in nuclear safety and processes, systems and layout engineering, mechanical engineering, control systems, instrumentation, and measurement. They draw on laboratories, digital tools, and high-performance computing infrastructure.
Control and instrumentation
Mechanical engineering and tooling
Fluid systems and layout
Energy conversion
Nuclear safety and processes
Industrial architecture
Aix-en-Provence: The hub of design engineering
For more than 30 years, the bulk of the design engineering has been based in Aix-en-Provence, encompassing dozens of highly technical disciplines. Cutting-edge methods and technological solutions are implemented and adapted to each project: virtual and augmented reality, physical simulation and scientific computing applications, digital twins of facilities, and modeling. It was in these design offices that the nuclear reactors for the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the 4 SSBNs currently in service, the 6 SNA submarines of the Barracuda program (currently under construction), and the future PANG and 3G SSBNs were designed.
Our engineering teams are also based in Saclay for design, in Cadarache and Cherbourg for operations and construction, and in Toulon and Brest for maintenance.
Nuclear ship propulsion: our core business
The nuclear reactors designed by TechnicAtome are integral to the deterrence chain. In just over 50 years, our teams have designed and built 24 nuclear reactors, including 22 onboard nuclear reactors for Navy ships.
For each project, achieving new levels of performance is an ongoing challenge. In nuclear safety—including acoustic discretion and cybersecurity—and due to technological obsolescence, cross-cutting issues are constantly evolving and shape the technical decisions made by our teams.
In Cadarache, TechnicAtome operates thermohydraulic, mechanical, and electrical testing facilities dedicated to nuclear propulsion, enabling design teams to validate models and qualify equipment under the specific environmental conditions of onboard reactors (temperature, pressure, tilt, shock, and vibration).
A strong presence in the civil nuclear sector
TechnicAtome’s expertise across all areas of nuclear engineering also extends to reactor projects for research and power generation. Our teams are contributing to the design of the Jules Horowitz Reactor (RJH) for the CEA in Cadarache and are supplying the main components of the reactor core. TechnicAtome also conducts design studies and develops core technologies in the field of small modular reactors (SMRs).
TechnicAtome also provides high-value-added engineering services for nuclear power reactors. Our engineers have worked on the qualification of the NCSS safety system, which is based on the Unicorn analog technology developed with our subsidiary Arcys and deployed for emergency control and command at the Hinkley Point C reactors in the United Kingdom.
