Design and R&D progress of Core Assembly Deformation Test Facility for China Demonstration Fast Reactor

•The design of the Core Assembly Deformation Test Facility was described in detail.•The conditions of assembly bending and thermal bowing tests were introduced briefly.•The heating and measurement technologies and the layout of sensors were introduced. China Demonstration Fast Reactor (CFR600) is under construction, and the Sub-assembly Deformation Analysis Program (SDAP) developed by China Institute of Atomic Energy is used to optimize the core design and operation management of CFR600. The Core Assembly Deformation Test Facility (CADTF), designed and built by Xi’an Jiaotong University, was selected to carry out a series of assembly bending and thermal bowing tests to provide validation problems for the SDAP. The specimen assembly was specially designed for better non-intrusive optical temperature measurement of the inner wrapper tube. The automatic heating control method and a lot of new measurement technology were applied into the tests to gain abundant and accurate test data.