First In-Core Simultaneous Measurements of Nuclear Heating and Thermal Neutron Flux obtained with the Innovative Mobile Calorimeter CALMOS inside the OSIRIS Reactor

H. Carcreff (1) , L. Salmon (1) , J. Bubendorff (1) , V. Lepeltier (1)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)

Nuclear heating inside a MTR reactor has to be known in order to design and to run irradiation experiments which have to fulfill target temperature constraints. This measurement is usually carried out by calorimetry. The innovative calorimetric system, CALMOS, has been studied and built in 2011 for the 70MWth OSIRIS reactor operated by CEA. Thanks to a new type of calorimetric probe, associated to a specific displacement system, it provides measurements along the fissile height and above the core. This development required preliminary modelling and irradiation of mock-ups of the calorimetric probe in the ex-core area, where nuclear heating rate does not exceed 2 W.g$^{-1}$. The calorimeter working modes, the different measurement procedures allowed with such a new probe, the main modeling and experimental results and expected advantages of this new technique have been already presented. However, these first in-core measurements were not performed beyond 6 W.g$^{-1}$, due to an inside temperature limitation imposed by a safety authority requirement. In this paper, we present the first in-core simultaneous measurements of nuclear heating and conventional thermal neutron flux obtained by the CALMOS device at the 70 MW nominal reactor power. For the first time, this experimental system was operated in nominal in-core conditions, with nominal neutron flux up to 2.7 10$^{14}$ n.cm-2.s$^{-1}$ and nuclear heating up to 12W.g$^{-1}$. A comprehensive measurement campaign carried out from 2013 to 2015 inside all accessible irradiation locations of the core, allowed to qualify definitively this new device, not only in terms of measurement ability but also in terms of reliability. After a brief reminder of the calorimetric cell configuration and displacement system specificities, first nuclear heating distributions at nominal power are presented and discussed. In order to reinforce the heating evaluation, a systematiccomparison is made between results obtained by different methods, the probe calibration coefficient and the zero method. Thermal neutron flux evaluation from the SPND signal processing required a specific TRIPOLI-4 Monte Carlo calculation which has been performed with the precise CALMOS cell geometry. In addition, the Finite Element model for temperatures map prediction inside the calorimetric cell has been upgraded with the recent experimental data obtained up to 12 W.g$^{-1}$. The Kc coefficient, taking into account nonlinearities with regard to the calibration, has been reevaluated so as to make relevant measurements up to the nominal reactor power.Finally, the experience feedback acquired until now with this first CALMOS version led us to improvement perspectives. A second device is currently under manufacturing and main technical options chosen for this second version are presented.

Mots clés: Nuclear heating; calorimetry; in-core measurements; OSIRIS reactor

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Expérimentale [nucl-ex]; Physique Nucléaire Théorique [nucl-th]

H. Carcreff, L. Salmon, J. Bubendorff, V. Lepeltier. First In-Core Simultaneous Measurements of Nuclear Heating and Thermal Neutron Flux obtained with the Innovative Mobile Calorimeter CALMOS inside the OSIRIS Reactor. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2015, 63 (5), pp.2662 - 2670. ⟨10.1109/TNS.2016.2574564⟩. ⟨cea-02500818⟩