Evaluation of the concrete shield compositions from the 2010 criticality accident alarm system benchmark experiments at the CEA Valduc SILENE facility

Conference · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2015

OSTI ID:1215597

Miller, Thomas Martin ^[1]; Celik, Cihangir ^[1]; Dunn, Michael E ^[1]; Wagner, John C ^[1]; McMahan, Kimberly L ^[1]; Authier, Nicolas ^[2]; Jacquet, Xavier ^[2]; Rousseau, Guillaume ^[2]; Wolff, Herve ^[2]; Savanier, Laurence ^[2]; Baclet, Nathalie ^[2]; Lee, Yi-kang ^[3]; Trama, Jean-Christophe ^[3]; Masse, Veronique ^[3]; Gagnier, Emmanuel ^[3]; Naury, Sylvie ^[3]; Blanc-Tranchant, Patrick ^[3]; Hunter, Richard ^[4]; Kim, Soon ^[5]; Dulik, George Michael ^[5] ; Reynolds, Kevin H. ^[6]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Centre de Valduc, Is-sur-Tille (France)
3. French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Centre de Saclay, Gif sur Yvette (France)
4. Babcock International Group (United Kingdom)
5. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
6. Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

In October 2010, a series of benchmark experiments were conducted at the French Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA) Valduc SILENE facility. These experiments were a joint effort between the United States Department of Energy Nuclear Criticality Safety Program and the CEA. The purpose of these experiments was to create three benchmarks for the verification and validation of radiation transport codes and evaluated nuclear data used in the analysis of criticality accident alarm systems. This series of experiments consisted of three single-pulsed experiments with the SILENE reactor. For the first experiment, the reactor was bare (unshielded), whereas in the second and third experiments, it was shielded by lead and polyethylene, respectively. The polyethylene shield of the third experiment had a cadmium liner on its internal and external surfaces, which vertically was located near the fuel region of SILENE. During each experiment, several neutron activation foils and thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) were placed around the reactor. Nearly half of the foils and TLDs had additional high-density magnetite concrete, high-density barite concrete, standard concrete, and/or BoroBond shields. CEA Saclay provided all the concrete, and the US Y-12 National Security Complex provided the BoroBond. Measurement data from the experiments were published at the 2011 International Conference on Nuclear Criticality (ICNC 2011) and the 2013 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division (NCSD 2013) topical meeting. Preliminary computational results for the first experiment were presented in the ICNC 2011 paper, which showed poor agreement between the computational results and the measured values of the foils shielded by concrete. Recently the hydrogen content, boron content, and density of these concrete shields were further investigated within the constraints of the previously available data. New computational results for the first experiment are now available that show much better agreement with the measured values.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1215597
• Resource Relation: Conference: ICNC 2015, Charlotte, NC (United States), 13 Sep 2015
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
CEA
CONCRETES
POLYETHYLENES
CRITICALITY
SILENE REACTOR
DENSITY
SHIELDING
THERMOLUMINESCENT DOSEMETERS
BENCHMARKS
BARITE
BORON
CADMIUM
FOILS
HYDROGEN
LEAD
MAGNETITE
EVALUATION
SAFETY
VALIDATION
RADIATION TRANSPORT
COMPUTER CODES
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
LINERS
PULSES
VERIFICATION
ACTIVATION DETECTORS
NUCLEAR DATA COLLECTIONS
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
CAAS
Shielding benchmark
Neutron Activation
Photon dose