No abstract

The main objective of this project is to develop calculation scheme for the evaluation of gamma heating at any chosen location for both JHR (Jules-Horowitz Reactor) and MARIA reactor. JHR is the future material testing reactor under construction on the Cadarache CEA site (the reactor is going to operate after 2016) and MARIA is an existing Polish reactor having characteristics close to those of JHR.For that purpose both, simulations tools and experimental program, are being developed. Calculations will be carried out with both JHR model and MARIA layout. TRIPOLI4 and APOLLO2 codes will be used for calculations of the gamma heating in reactor cores. Representative calculation scheme for MARIA is needed in view to identify optimal locations for measurements according to JHR needs. The correctness of calculations will be qualified by a comparison with the experimental measurements performed in MARIA reactor. Instrumentation which will be used for these measurements have to be properly calibrated. The main aim of the present paper is to propose a calibration procedure for gamma heating measurements Index Terms-reactor gamma heating, Jules Horowitz Reactor -JHR, MARIA reactor.

No abstract

We compute the dynamic reactivity of several reactor configurations by resorting to Monte Carlo simulation. The adjoint-weighted kinetics parameters are first determined by the Iterated Fission Probability (IFP) method, together with precursor decay constants, and the reactivity is then estimated by the in-hour equation. When reference experimental values are available for the reactivity as a function of the asymptotic reactor period, comparison with the Monte Carlo simulation findings allows validating the IFP algorithm and at the same time probing the accuracy of the nuclear data libraries used in numerical simulations. For our calculations we resort to the Tripoli-4 R Monte Carlo code, developed at CEA, where IFP methods have been recently implemented. We perform a detailed analysis of the IPEN/MB-01 core, the SPERT III E-core, and the SPERT IV D-12/25 core, for which benchmark-quality reactor specifications have been published. We single out some systematic discrepancies between computed and measured core reactivity that might mirror possible inconsistencies in nuclear data libraries.