First In-Core Simultaneous Measurements of Nuclear Heating and Thermal Neutron Flux Obtained With the Innovative Mobile Calorimeter CALMOS Inside the OSIRIS Reactor

Abstract

Nuclear heating inside a MTR reactor has to be known in order to design and 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. Calorimeter working modes, measurement procedures, main modeling and experimental results and expected advantages of this new technique have been already presented in previous papers. However, these first in-core measurements were not performed beyond $6~\mathrm {W} \cdot \mathrm {g} ^{-1}$ , 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 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 $10 ^{14} ~\mathrm {n}\cdot \mathrm {cm}^{-2} \cdot \mathrm {s} ^{-1}$ and nuclear heating up to $12~\mathrm {W} \cdot \mathrm {g} ^{-1}$ . 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 comparison is made between results obtained by the probe calibration coefficient and the zero methods. Thermal neutron flux evaluation from 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 recent experimental data obtained up to $12~\mathrm {W} \cdot \mathrm {g} ^{-1}$ . Finally, the experience feedback led us to improvement perspectives. A second device is currently under manufacturing and main technical options are presented.