National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) - capabilities and recent measurements

Autor: Thompson Nicholas, Hutchinson Jesson, Bahran Rian, Hayes David, Myers William, Arthur Jennifer, Bounds John, Cutler Theresa, Dinwiddie Derek, Goda Joetta, Grove Travis, Little Robert, McKenzie George, McSpaden Alex, Sanchez Rene, Sood Avneet, White Morgan, Margevicius Robert
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: EPJ Web of Conferences, Vol 239, p 18003 (2020)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2100-014X
DOI: 10.1051/epjconf/202023918003
Popis: The National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) located at the Device Assembly Facility (DAF) at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is home to four critical assemblies which are used to support of range of missions, including nuclear criticality safety and nuclear nonproliferation. Additionally, subcritical systems can also be assembled at NCERC. NCERC is providing critical and subcritical experiments valuable to the nuclear data community and experiments performed at NCERC are often published as benchmarks in the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) Handbook. This manuscript will give a broad overview of recent experiments performed at NCERC, upcoming experiments, and why integral measurements are important and useful to the nuclear data community. The four critical assemblies are GODIVA IV, FLATTOP, COMET, and PLANET. GODIVA IV is a cylindrical metal fast burst reactor, the fourth in the GODIVA series that dates back to the 1950’s. FLATTOP is an highly enriched uranium (HEU) or Pu core reflected by natural uranium. COMET and PLANET are vertical lift assemblies, where one half of the reactor can be lifted to the upper half of the reactor to create a critical system. Some recent experiments include various critical intermediate energy assemblies with lead, and subcritical measurements of plutonium reflected by copper, tungsten, and nickel. Work is also underway to make a better measurement of the critical mass of neptunium, using a neptunium sphere surrounded by nickel shells. Additionally, measurements will be performed next year with HEU shells from Rocky Flats. These HEU shells will be stacked together to make larger systems, allowing for a large range of criticality (from subcritical to delayed critical). Other upcoming measurements include an HEU critical assembly sensitive to intermediate energy neutrons.
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