Radiation hardness studies and detector characterisation at the JSI TRIGA reactor

Abstract

The JSI TRIGA reactor features several in-core and ex-core irradiation facilities, each having different properties, such as neutron/gamma flux intensity, spectra and irradiation volume. A series of experiments and calculations was performed in order to characterise radiation fields in irradiation channel thus allowing users to perform irradiations in a well characterised environment. Since 2001 the reactor has been heavily used for radiation hardness studies for components used at accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Since 2010 it has been extensively used for testing of new detectors and innovative data acquisition systems and methods developed and used by the CEA. Recently, several campaigns were initiated to characterise the gamma field in the reactor and use the experimental data for improvement of the treatment of delayed gammas in Monte Carlo particle transport codes. In the future it is planned to extend the testing options by employing pulse mode operation, installation of a high energy gamma ray irradiation facility and allow irradiation of larger samples at elevated temperature.

Nuclear-driven production of renewable fuel additives from waste organics

“…This light water reactor uses fuel elements made of 20% enriched 235 U within a zirconium hydride composite. It has a maximum steady-state power of 250 kW and has a maximum neutron and γ fluence of 1.9 × 10 13 cm −2 s −1 and 2.1 × 10 13 cm −2 s −1 , respectively, within its central irradiation channel (CC) 57 . All the organic samples were irradiated in the larger triangular irradiation channel (TriC) and irradiated with either: delayed γ (only γ-rays) when the reactor was shut down, or a mixture of neutrons and prompt γ (neutrons+γ) when the reactor was critical.…”

Characterization of the polysilicon resistor in silicon strip sensors for ATLAS inner tracker as a function of temperature, pre- and post-irradiation

“…The samples were irradiated by protons, neutrons and gammas at different irradiation sites. The proton irradiation was performed at the University of Birmingham [6], UK by 27 MeV and at CYRIC [7], Japan by 70 MeV protons, the irradiation by neutrons took place at Ljubljana JSI TRIGA reactor [8] and the gamma irradiation was achieved by 60 Co source at UJP Praha [9].…”

Simultaneous, Robot-Compatible γ-Ray Spectroscopy and Imaging of an Operating Nuclear Reactor

“…The radiation imaging/spectroscopy system was tested both with a Jackal mobile robotic platform, and as a stand-alone instrument, at the JSI TRIGA Mark II reactor in Slovenia. This research reactor has a variety of uses, including neutron irradiation experiments [31], training and, of relevance to this research, it can also be used for  irradiation purposes especially where a dispersed form of  radiation (in terms of space and energy) is desirable for comparison with point-source responses: the energies of  rays emitted by the reactor reach 10 MeV and above [32]. Fig.…”