Measurements for the Jasper Program intermediate heat exchanger experiment

Abstract

The Intermediate Heat Exchanger (IHX) experiment was conducted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Tower shielding Facility (TSF) during the last three months of 1991 and the first two months of 1992 as part of a continuing series of eight experiments planned for the Japanese-American shielding Program for Experimental Research (JASPER) program that was started in 1986. This is the fifth experiment in that series, all of which are intended to provide support in the development of current reactor shield designs proposed for liquid metal reactor (LMR) systems both in Japan and the United States. The program is a cooperative effort between the United States Department of Energy (US DOE) and the japanese Power Reactor and Nuclear Development Corporation (PNC). The experimental configurations consisted of a neutron spectrum modifier followed by various shield mockups. For the PNC portion of the program the modifier was a large volume of sodium typical of the area in which their IHX vessel would be located radially from the reactor core. configurations studied in the US part of the program were preceded by the same modifier of iron, aluminum, boral, and sodium used with the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) mockups in the previous In- Vessel Fuel Storage (IVFS) experiment. This modifier was followed by mockups representative of three different off-axial locations that were being considered for placement of the IHX vessel. The PNC plan was concerned with the effort of surrounding a mockup of the sodium containing IHX vessel by a partial or full component boron carbide (B{sub 4}C) shield.