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Title: Nuclear characterization of a general-purpose instrumentation and materials testing location in TREAT

Journal Article · · Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
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The Transient Reactor Test facility (TREAT) was constructed in the late 1950s, provided thousands of transient irradiations before being placed in standby in 1994, and resumed operations in 2017 in order to reclaim its crucial role in nuclear-heated safety research. The latter half of TREAT’s historic operation was best known for integral-scale testing of fuel specimens under postulated reactor plant accident conditions, while TREAT’s earlier history included extensive simpler phenomena identification tests that elucidated fundamental behaviors and paved the way for these integral-scale tests. Advances in modern computational capabilities and a resurgence of interest in novel reactor technology have created an opportunity for emphasizing modernized science-based and separate effects test capabilities once again at TREAT. An innovative approach to this type of testing has been developed to leverage minor radioactivity built-in during brief TREAT irradiations in low activation hardware to facilitate handling for materials and instrumentation testing. This capability, termed the Minimal Activation Retrievable Capsule Holder (MARCH) irradiation vehicle system, will be used for inaugural fueled experiments in TREAT’s modern era as well as novel approaches to study materials undergoing neutron irradiation and instrumentation development and qualifications. This paper describes a comprehensive nuclear characterization, obtained via computational modeling, of the test position in the MARCH system. Though directly applicable to the MARCH system, the results also provide general quantification of the nuclear performance of the reactor and potential test materials, crucial for evaluating potential experiment design and response in TREAT. The neutron and photon flux environment was calculated via MCNP with ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear data. Wire heating rate and DPA calculations were also performed and evaluated using historic TREAT test data. Furthermore, these calculations were performed to provide steady-state baseline reference values typical in both half- and full-slotted TREAT core configurations, enabling design scoping analysis prior to development of more specific design testing needs and transient testing experimentation.

Research Organization:
Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517
OSTI ID:
1557659
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1636415
Report Number(s):
INL/JOU-18-44851-Rev000
Journal Information:
Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford), Vol. 124, Issue C; ISSN 0306-4549
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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ENDF/B-VII.1 Nuclear Data for Science and Technology: Cross Sections, Covariances, Fission Product Yields and Decay Data journal December 2011
Fast-Neutron Hodoscope at TREAT: Methods for Quantitative Determination of Fuel Dispersal journal January 1982
Interpretation of energy deposition data from historical operation of the transient test facility (TREAT) journal October 2017
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Time Dependence of Test Fuel Power Coupling During Transient Reactor Test Facility Irradiation Experiments journal February 1984
Evaluation of effective threshold displacement energies and other data required for the calculation of advanced atomic displacement cross-sections journal September 2017
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Structural materials for fission & fusion energy journal November 2009

Cited By (1)

Development of Advanced Instrumentation for Transient Testing journal August 2019

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Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
TREAT
MCNP
Steady-State
Transient Testing
Baseline
Reactor Characterization
In-Pile Instrumentation
Irradiation Environment
Nuclear Testing
Fuels and Materials
MARCH
BUSTER
MIMIC
Neutron Flux
Photon Flux
DPA
Heating Rates
Historic Data
Validation
Graphite Reactor