Absolute reactivity calibration of accelerator-driven systems after RACE-T experiments
- Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique CEA, Centre de Cadarache, DEN/CAD/DER/SPEx/LPE, 13108 Saint Paul-Lez-Durance (France)
- Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States)
- Ente per le Nuove Tecnologie, L'Energia e l'Ambiente, Centro della Casaccia, Via Anguillarese, 301, 00060 Roma I (Italy)
The RACE-T experiments that were held in november 2005 in the ENEA-Casaccia research center near Rome allowed us to improve our knowledge of the experimental techniques for absolute reactivity calibration at either startup or shutdown phases of accelerator-driven systems. Various experimental techniques for assessing a subcritical level were inter-compared through three different subcritical configurations SC0, SC2 and SC3, about -0.5, -3 and -6 dollars, respectively. The area-ratio method based of the use of a pulsed neutron source appears as the most performing. When the reactivity estimate is expressed in dollar unit, the uncertainties obtained with the area-ratio method were less than 1% for any subcritical configuration. The sensitivity to measurement location was about slightly more than 1% and always less than 4%. Finally, it is noteworthy that the source jerk technique using a transient caused by the pulsed neutron source shutdown provides results in good agreement with those obtained from the area-ratio technique. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22039571
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: PHYSOR-2006: American Nuclear Society's Topical Meeting on Reactor Physics - Advances in Nuclear Analysis and Simulation, Vancouver, BC (Canada), 10-14 Sep 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 9 refs.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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