Experimental Results from the VENUS-F Critical Reference State for the GUINEVERE Accelerator Driven System Project

TY - JOUR

T1 - Experimental Results from the VENUS-F Critical Reference State for the GUINEVERE Accelerator Driven System Project

AU - Uyttenhove, Wim

AU - Baeten, Peter

AU - Ban, G.

AU - Billebaud, A.

AU - Chabod, S.

AU - Dessagne, P.

AU - Kerveno, M.

AU - Kochetkov, Anatoly

AU - Lecolley, F.-R.

AU - Lecouey, J.-L.

AU - Marie, N.

AU - Mellier, F.

AU - Steckmeyer, J.-C.

AU - Thyébault, H.-E.

AU - Vittiglio, Guido

AU - Wagemans, Jan

A2 - Van den Eynde, Gert

N1 - Score = 10

PY - 2012/12

Y1 - 2012/12

N2 - The GUINEVERE (Generation of Uninterrupted Intense NEutron pulses at the lead VEnus REactor) project was launched in 2006 within the framework of FP6 EUROTRANS in order to validate on-line reactivity monitoring and subcriticality level determination in Accelerator Driven Systems. Therefore the VENUS reactor at SCK•CEN in Mol (Belgium) was modified towards a fast core (VENUS-F) and coupled to the GENEPI-3C accelerator built by CNRS. The accelerator can operate in both continuous and pulsed mode. The VENUS-F core is loaded with enriched Uranium and reflected with solid lead. A well-chosen critical reference state is indispensable for the validation of the on-line subcriticality monitoring methodology. Moreover a benchmarking tool is required for nuclear data research and code validation. In this paper the design and the importance of the critical reference state for the GUINEVERE project are motivated. The results of the first experimental phase on the critical core are presented. The control rods worth is determined by the positive period method and the application of the Modified Source Multiplication (MSM) method allows the determination of the worth of the safety rods. The results are implemented in the VENUS-F core certificate for full exploitation of the critical core.

AB - The GUINEVERE (Generation of Uninterrupted Intense NEutron pulses at the lead VEnus REactor) project was launched in 2006 within the framework of FP6 EUROTRANS in order to validate on-line reactivity monitoring and subcriticality level determination in Accelerator Driven Systems. Therefore the VENUS reactor at SCK•CEN in Mol (Belgium) was modified towards a fast core (VENUS-F) and coupled to the GENEPI-3C accelerator built by CNRS. The accelerator can operate in both continuous and pulsed mode. The VENUS-F core is loaded with enriched Uranium and reflected with solid lead. A well-chosen critical reference state is indispensable for the validation of the on-line subcriticality monitoring methodology. Moreover a benchmarking tool is required for nuclear data research and code validation. In this paper the design and the importance of the critical reference state for the GUINEVERE project are motivated. The results of the first experimental phase on the critical core are presented. The control rods worth is determined by the positive period method and the application of the Modified Source Multiplication (MSM) method allows the determination of the worth of the safety rods. The results are implemented in the VENUS-F core certificate for full exploitation of the critical core.

KW - Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS)

KW - VENUS-F

KW - Critical Core

KW - Experiments

KW - Licensing

UR - http://ecm.sckcen.be/OTCS/llisapi.dll/open/ezp_126530

UR - http://knowledgecentre.sckcen.be/so2/bibref/9926

U2 - 10.1109/TNS.2012.2217350

DO - 10.1109/TNS.2012.2217350

M3 - Article

VL - 59

SP - 3194

EP - 3200

JO - IEEE transactions on nuclear Science

JF - IEEE transactions on nuclear Science

SN - 0018-9499

IS - 6

T2 - Int. Conf. on Advancements in Nuclear Instrumentation

Y2 - 6 June 2011 through 9 June 2011

ER -