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ALTEA welding platform

Located at CEA Saclay, the ALTEA platform, is part of the Systems and Structures Modeling Department (DM2S). It is composed of several facilities dedicated to research programs on metallurgical weldability and welding procedures, welding process control instrumentation, and numerical simulation of welding processes. Studies concern a large range of  metallic materials (steels and stainless steels, aluminum, nickel, zirconium and copper alloys, and ODS steels) for various applications and needs (large components of current reactor circuits, steam generator, GFR and SFR generation IV reactors, nuclear reprocessing plants, and nuclear canisters). The ALTEA platform includes:

• Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) and Gas Metal Arc Welding  (GMAW) machines and a YAG laser platform;

• a resistance welding platform (SOPRANO) and welding characterization tools (hardness tester, SEM-EDS);

• instrumentation for welding simulation and process control (remote welding and remote laser cutting), thermal and mechanical instrumentation for validating models, and dedicated finite element analyses for optimizing welding processes.