Manuela Profir received a M.Sc. degree in Mathematics in 2002, followed by a master in Geometry and Algebra in 2005 at the University of Iasi (Romania) and a PhD in Differential Geometry at the University of Cagliari in 2009. From 2010 to 2012, she was beneficiary of a grant for young researchers, co-funded by EU and RAS, at CRS4, developing a research project about the mesh morphing techniques in CFD simulation and analysis codes, with a geometric and topological approach. Since 2012, at CRS4 she has been applying the moving mesh methods \t \t \t \tfor the simulation and testing of the passive insertion of the control rods system in the case of a reactor emergency shutdown, in the framework of the FP7 MAXSIMA research project. Since 2016, in the framework of the H2020 SESAME, PATRICIA, PASCAL and ANSELMUS projects, she has been performing CFD simulations and modelling of pool type experiments and new generation reactor conceptual design. She regularly collaborates with the university and supervises undergraduate students for their professional training at CRS4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4090,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"gruppo":[124],"class_list":["post-10042","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","gruppo-high-performance-and-quantum-computing-biosciences-and-advanced-studies"],"acf":{"name":"Maria Manuela","surname":"Profir","email":"manuela@crs4.it","phone":"+39 070 9250239","user_uuid":"04917308-99ff-1032-95fe-0030485a3848","personal_page":"","google_scholar_id":"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=V9MomyYAAAAJ","position":"Researcher","microsoft_academic_id":"","project_coordinator":[{"ID":12558,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:17:40","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:17:40","post_content":"Shortening the time-to market of the LFR technology is an ambitious, but undeniably important factor to attract additional\u00a0investments, thanks to the lower initial risk, added flexibility, and faster return of experience. Industries and utilities sharing the vision\u00a0of a competitive LFR of a small and medium-size with modular features will be attracted by the compressed deployment roadmap,\u00a0and will play a leverage role at national and European level, strengthening synergies and creating public\u2013private\u2013partnership\u00a0opportunities. In this context, the European community working on the LFR development and deployment assumed the\u00a0commitment, among others, to highlight the technical open issues and existing research infrastructures, aiming to support the R&D\u00a0phase through European, national and in-kind contribution of the involved partners. The aim of the LESTO project is moving on along\u00a0the depicted roadmap, aiming at further developing the LFR technology, supporting the demonstration that LFRs can be designed,\u00a0sited, constructed, commissioned and operated in line with the requirements of the actual safety standards, with particular focus on\u00a0their safety features and passive safety systems. Along the project the most relevant facilities in Europe and UK will be adopted to\u00a0implement a large and very comprehensive experimental database for code validation, safety assessment and component\/system\u00a0demonstration. Among the others, it is worth to mention the large-scale pool type ATHENA facility, being commissioned in Romania,\u00a0the CIRCE pool in Italy, as well as MELECOR in UK. These facilities, with the support of research infrastructure in Belgium, Germany and\u00a0Sweden represent the state of art for the LFR R&D. Large emphasis will be devoted to transient analysis in large pools, allowing the\u00a0community to cross the death valley from laboratory to industry scale.","post_title":"LESTO","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"lesto","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:31:57","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:31:57","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/lesto\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"team_members":[{"ID":12554,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:17:38","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:17:38","post_content":"Technological Research Action Necessary for Safe PARrtitioning And Nuclear - Transmutation\u00a0The impact of low carbon energy sources in combating rapid climate change underlines the role of nuclear energy as part of a\u00a0sustainable energy mix. Yet, safety and waste concerns must not be downplayed. For the latter, the main goal should be to recycleused fuel, aiming to close the fuel cycle. This eases ultimate radioactive waste management, enhances proliferation resistance and\u00a0drastically improves economy and sustainability by better use of fuel resources.\u00a0The SNETP deployment plan outlines technical needs for fuel recycling including separation of used fuel, fabrication andcharacterisation of minor actinide bearing fuel and the development of transmutation systems to recover energy and reduce waste.\u00a0This proposal aligns with the SNETP deployment plan and responds to the call in HORIZON-EURATOM-2023-NRT-01, topic 05 \u201cPartitioning and transmutation of minor actinides towards industrial application\u201d. It focuses on the efficiency of Am (Americium)\u00a0separation from used fuel, on experimental and fuel performance code development work studying the behaviour of Am bearing fuel\u00a0under irradiation and on the safety related research supporting the licensing process of MYRRHA in its role as dedicated accelerator\u00a0driven transmuter demonstrator. This project builds upon the collaborative efforts initiated in the PATRICIA project, bringing together\u00a0communities working on partitioning, transmutation, and MYRRHA development.Finally, dedicated work packages deal with education, focusing on pre-and post-graduates, and with dissemination, targeting the\u00a0specific stakeholders and the public at large. A further task on knowledge management encompasses both foreground data as well asmetadata as to ensure that proper quality assessment and validation is possible. The project will employ a combination of\u00a0experiments, theoretical studies and numerical simulations harnessing the expertise of 21 research centres and universities from\u00a0eight EU countries, the UK and Switzerland.","post_title":"TRANSPARANT","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"transparant","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:31:55","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:31:55","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/transparant\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":12666,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:17:53","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:17:53","post_content":"The importance of low carbon energy sources in the efforts against rapid climate change makes nuclear energy part of a sustainable energy mix. Although there have been years of experience feedback with water cooled reactors, fundamental improvement, particularly regarding intrinsic safety and reduced nuclear waste generation is possible using advanced nuclear designs. Heavy metal cooled systems such as the lead fast reactor (LFR) combine the advantages of a fast reactor system that reduces waste with the intrinsic safety related properties such as the high boiling point, chemical inertia and improved heat transfer. ANSELMUS responds to the Horizon-Euratom -2021-NRT-01-02 call on safety of advanced and innovative nuclear designs and fuels. Its objective is to contribute significantly to the safety assessment of heavy-liquid-metal (HLM) systems, in particular ALFRED and MYRRHA as these are included in the roadmap for the development of advanced systems in Europe. It will use the maturity of both designs to create two detailed Phenomena Identification and Ranking Tables (PIRT) that identify all verification and validation needs and are used for further safety evaluation. The project will also experimentally validate key safety related sub-systems including the safety rods, failed fuel pin detection and the coolant chemistry control system. We also will improve the validation of numerical models describing the fuel assembly through experiments and simulations and work on reactor safety monitoring and inspection of HLM systems focusing on high temperature vessel inspection. Moreover, ANSELMUS will look into the societal impact of HLM reactors by assessing the integration of LFR in a mixed energy landscape, including economical aspects, and by addressing social and ethical considerations of advanced nuclear technologies. Finally, a dedicated effort will be put into education and dissemination towards all stakeholders including policy makers and the general public.","post_title":"ANSELMUS","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"anselmus","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:32:10","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:32:10","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/anselmus\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":13309,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:19:04","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:19:04","post_content":"The PASCAL project is devoted at significantly contribute to the advancement of the safety research on innovative Heavy Liquid Metal (HLM) cooled reactors, with the ambition to generate evidence that is ready-for-use in the discussions between the ALFRED and MYRRHA designers and the respective safety authorities in the pre-licensing phase.\nThe goals of PASCAL also set an ambition of relevance and quality to the results, which is reflected in structuring and organizing the proposal.\nRelevant experiments in representative conditions are planned, and - wherever applicable - accompaigned by simulations with the objective of extending their domain of validation and reducing uncertainties. The selected activities all address the main reference: supporting the justification of resilience to severe accident conditions, aiming to demonstrate the claim that no off-site emergency measures are needed for an HLM-cooled system. Finally, the project will strengthen the longstanding collaborations among European organizations, and will strongly support the education and training of a new generation of experts, to secure safety culture is preserved.","post_title":"PASCAL","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"pascal","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:33:11","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:33:11","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/pascal\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":13314,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:19:12","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:19:12","post_content":"Climate change is one of the main issues facing humanity. Due to its low CO2 emission, nuclear power is part of a sustainable energy mix. However, safety and waste issues cannot be taken lightly. For the latter the way forward is to recycle spent fuel with the goal to close the fuel cycle. This eases ultimate radioactive waste management, increases proliferation resistance and drastically improves economy and sustainability by better use of fuel resources.\nThe SNETP deployment plan describes a technical needs fuel recycling including partitioning of spent fuel, fabrication and characterisation of minor actinide bearing fuel and the development of transmutation systems.\nThis proposal follows that plan and answers to NRFP7 of the 2018-2019 EURATOM call: Research and Innovation for Partitioning and\/or Transmutation. It focusses on research on advanced partitioning to efficiently separate Am from spent fuel, on experimental and fuel performance code development work studying the behaviour of Am bearing fuel under irradiation and on the safety related research supporting the licensing process of MYRRHA in its role in the development trajectory for a dedicated accelerator driven transmuter. It may be noted that for first time, the communities working of partitioning, transmutation and the development of MYRRHA are joint in one project.\nBesides the technical work described above, dedicated work packages deals with education focussing on pre-and post-graduate students, and with dissemination where besides the specific stakeholders also high school pupils and the general public is targeted. A further task on knowledge management includes the both foreground data as well as metadata to so ensure proper QA for V&V is possible. The project is performed using a combination of experiments, theoretical studies and numerical simulations for which the expertise of 26 research centres and universities from 14 EU countries, Switzerland, Korea, Russia and the US is pooled.","post_title":"PATRICIA","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"patricia","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:33:16","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:33:16","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/patricia\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":19602,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:21:03","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:21:03","post_content":"The thermal-hydraulics Simulations and Experiments for the Safety Assessment of Metal cooled reactor-SESAME project supports the development of European liquid metal cooled reactors (ASTRID, ALFRED, MYRRHA, SEALER). The project focusses on pre-normative, fundamental, safety-related, challenges for these reactors with the following objectives: \u2022 Development and validation of advanced numerical approaches for the design and safety evaluation of advanced reactors; \u2022 Achievement of a new or extended validation base by creation of new reference data; \u2022 Establishment of best practice guidelines, Verification & Validation methodologies, and uncertainty quantification methods for liquid metal fast reactor thermal hydraulics. The SESAME project will improve the safety of liquid metal fast reactors by making available new safety related experimental results and improved numerical approaches. These will allow system designers to improve the safety relevant equipment leading to enhanced safety standards and culture. Due to the fundamental and generic nature of SESAME, developments will be of relevance also for the safety assessment of contemporary light water reactors. By extending the knowledge basis, SESAME will allow the EU member states to develop robust safety policies. At the same time, SESAME will maintain and further develop the European experimental facilities and numerical tools. The consortium of 25 partners provides American-European-wide scientific and technological excellence in liquid metal thermal hydraulics, as well as full alignment with ESNII and with NUGENIA where of interest. A close interaction with the European liquid metal cooled reactor design teams is foreseen involving them in the Senior Advisory Committee. They will actively advise on the content of the project and will be the prime end-users, ensuring their innovative reactor designs will reach highest safety standards using frontier scientific developments.","post_title":"SESAME","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"sesame","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:34:52","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:34:52","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/sesame\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":19625,"post_author":"4","post_date":"2025-07-03 18:21:52","post_date_gmt":"2025-07-03 16:21:52","post_content":"The Strategic Research Agenda of the EU Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technical platform requires new large infrastructures for its successful deployment. MYRRHA has been identified as a long term supporting research facility for all ESNII systems and as such put in the high-priority list of ESFRI. The goal of MAXSIMA is to contribute to the \"safety in MYRRHA\" assessment.\nMAXSIMA has five technical work-packages. The first contains safety analyses to support licensing of MYRRHA. Design-based, design extended and severe accident events will be studied with a focus on transients potentially leading to fuel pin failures. Fuel assembly blockage and control system failure are the least unlikely events leading to core damage. For code validation a thermal-hydraulic study of different blockage scenarios of the fuel bundle and tests of the hydrodynamic behaviour of a new buoyancy driven control\/safety system are planned. Both are supported by numerical simulations. Safety of the Steam Generator is treated by looking at consequences and damage propagation of a SG Tube Rupture event (SGTR) and by characterising leak rates and bubble sizes from typical cracks in a SGTR. Additionally a leak detection system and the drag on bubbles travelling through liquid LBE are studied. MOX fuel segment qualification with transient irradiations is a big step in licensing. MAXIMA include validation experiments for safety computer codes involving core damage scenarios with high temperature MOX-LBE interactions. Fuel-coolant-clad chemistry is studied up to 1700\u00b0C and a core melt experiment in a reactor is prepared to assess the interaction of LBE with molten fuel. Following the Fukushima accident, effort is put on development of enhanced passive safety systems for decay heat removal and on confinement analyses for HLM systems. A separate work package is dedicated to education and training. Beside workshops, lecture series and training sessions, virtual-safety simulator software will be developed.","post_title":"MAXSIMA","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"maxsima","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2026-04-02 12:35:36","post_modified_gmt":"2026-04-02 10:35:36","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.crs4.it\/projects\/maxsima\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"projects","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}]},"yoast_head":"\n