[2D18-20] Critical Experiment Design

4:55 PM - 5:10 PM JST(7:55 AM - 8:10 AM UTC)

[2D18] Exploring critical experimental configurations in the STACY facility based on a phenomenological parametrization of the Keff sensitivity profiles.

*Benjamin Dechenaux¹, Mariya Brovchenko¹, Satoshi Gunji², Shouhei Araki² (1. Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN - France), 2. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Nuclear Safety Research Center)

Keywords:

criticality safety,critical experiment,missing fuel rods,new STACY facility

In the context of a longstanding collaboration between JAEA and IRSN, an innovative methodology, devised at IRSN, and aimed towards the study of criticality safety of fuel assemblies with missing fuel rods, has been transposed to the design of critical experiments in the STACY facility. This new methodology relies on providing a set of variables, precisely tailored to parametrize the variability of the configurations encountered for different configurations of a lattice of fuel pins immersed in water. In the context of the STACY facility, these new variables are used to provide a phenomenological parametrization of the keff sensitivity energy profiles attainable and thus would serve as a powerful companion for the design of the most pertinent critical experiments to perform in aim of a specific criticality safety validation need.