THE PRINCESS PROJECT: FROM DIFFERENTIAL TO INTEGRAL EXPERIMENTS

Following the shutdown of the CEA Valduc experimental facilities, where, for more than 50 years, IRSN used to perform experiments related to criticality safety, IRSN initiated a new project named PRINCESS (PRoject for IRSN Neutron physics and Criticality Experimental data Supporting Safety). The objective is to continue collecting experimental data necessary for the IRSN missions in nuclear safety. For this purpose, collaborations with various national and international laboratories have been established. The PRINCESS project covers various nuclear physics fields from nuclear data to criticality-safety and reactor physics providing information to both differential and integral data improvements.

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Summary of 3rd Sino-German symposium on fundamentals of advanced nuclear safety technology

Kerntechnik ◽

10.1515/kern-2020-850210 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 85 (2) ◽

pp. 131-135

Author(s):

X. Cheng ◽

A. Wielenberg ◽

U. Hampel ◽

J. Starflinger ◽

S. Gupta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Data Base ◽

Nuclear Safety ◽

Safety Technology ◽

Experimental Facilities

Abstract The 3rd "Sino-German Symposium on Fundamentals of Advanced Nuclear Safety Technology (SG-FANS)" took place in Xi’an, China, in 2019. Common fields of interests have been identified on both Chinese and German side, such as code benchmarking, common access to experimental facilities and joint experimental data base for nuclear safety analyses.

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Synergy of Nuclear Data and Nuclear Theory Online

EPJ Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/epjconf/202023903021 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 239 ◽

pp. 03021

Author(s):

Andrey Denikin ◽

Alexander Karpov ◽

Mikhail Naumenko ◽

Vladimir Rachkov ◽

Viacheslav Samarin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Knowledge Base ◽

Cross Sections ◽

Nuclear Physics ◽

Nuclear Research ◽

Nuclear Data ◽

Reaction Cross ◽

Nuclear Dynamics ◽

Wide Range ◽

Educational Applications

The paper describes the NRV web knowledge base on low-energy nuclear physics developed in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The NRV knowledge base working through the Internet integrates a large amount of digitized experimental data on the properties of nuclei and nuclear reaction cross sections with a wide range of computational programs for modeling of nuclear properties and nuclear dynamics. Today, the NRV becomes a powerful instrument for nuclear physics research as well as for educational applications. Advantages of the functioning scheme of the knowledge base provide the synergy of coexistence of the experimental data and computational codes within one platform.

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Contributions to integral nuclear data in ICSBEP and IRPhEP since ND2016

EPJ Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/epjconf/202023918007 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 239 ◽

pp. 18007

Author(s):

John Darrell Bess ◽

Tatiana Ivanova ◽

J. Blair Briggs

Keyword(s):

Spectral Characteristics ◽

Nuclear Data ◽

Nuclear Facilities ◽

Reactor Physics ◽

Benchmark Experiment ◽

Reactivity Coefficients ◽

Physics Experiment ◽

Safety Applications ◽

Evaluation Project ◽

Criticality Safety

The contributions to the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) and the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) was last presented to the international nuclear data community at ND2016. Since ND2016, integral benchmark data that are available for nuclear data testing has continued to increase. The 2018 edition of the International Handbook of Evaluated Criti-cality Safety Benchmark Experiments (ICSBEP Handbook) now contains 574 evaluations with benchmark specifications for 4,916 critical, near-critical, or subcritical configurations, 45 criticality alarm placement/shielding configuration with multiple dose points apiece, and 215 configurations that have been categorized as fundamental physics measurements that are relevant to criticality safety applications. The 2018 edition of the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP Handbook) contains data from 159 different experimental series that were performed at 54 different nuclear facilities. Currently 156 of the 159 evaluations are published as approved benchmarks with the remaining three evaluations published as drafts. Measurements found in the IRPhEP Handbook include criticality, buckling and extrapolation length, spectral characteristics, reactivity effects, reactivity coefficients, kinetics, reaction-rate distributions, power distributions, isotopic compositions, and/or other miscellaneous types of measurements for various types of reactor systems. Additional benchmark evaluations will be included in the 2019 editions of these handbooks. These handbooks continue to represent the standard for neutronics benchmark experiment evaluation.

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Fission yields and cross sections: correlated or not?

EPJ Nuclear Sciences & Technologies ◽

10.1051/epjn/2021005 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 5

Author(s):

Dimitri Alexandre Rochman ◽

Eric Bauge

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Cross Sections ◽

Previous Analysis ◽

Fission Products ◽

Nuclear Data ◽

Isotopic Compositions ◽

Different Types ◽

Fission Yields ◽

Integral Data ◽

Selection Of

Cross sections and fission yields can be correlated, depending on the selection of integral experimental data. To support this statement, this work presents the use of experimental isotopic compositions (both for actinides and fission products) from a sample irradiated in a reactor, to construct correlations between various cross sections and fission yields. This study is therefore complementing previous analysis demonstrating that different types of nuclear data can be correlated, based on experimental integral data.

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A computational EXFOR database

EPJ Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/epjconf/202023916001 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 239 ◽

pp. 16001

Author(s):

Georg Schnabel

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Programming Languages ◽

Nuclear Physics ◽

Nuclear Data ◽

Important Ingredient ◽

Starting Point ◽

Exfor Library ◽

High Level ◽

Exfor Database ◽

Programmatic Access

The EXFOR library is a useful resource for many people in the field of nuclear physics. In particular, the experimental data in the EXFOR library serves as a starting point for nuclear data evaluations. There is an ongoing discussion about how to make evaluations more transparent and reproducible. One important ingredient may be convenient programmatic access to the data in the EXFOR library from high-level languages. To this end, the complete EXFOR library can be converted to a MongoDB database. This database can be conveniently searched and accessed from a wide variety of programming languages, such as C++, Python, Java, Matlab, and R. This contribution provides some details about the successful conversion of the EXFOR library to a MongoDB database and shows simple usage examples to underline its merits. All codes required for the conversion have been made available online and are open-source. In addition, a Dockerfile has been created to facilitate the installation process.

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Nuclear Data Uncertainty Quantification in Criticality Safety Evaluations for Spent Nuclear Fuel Geological Disposal

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11146499 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (14) ◽

pp. 6499

Author(s):

Matthias Frankl ◽

Mathieu Hursin ◽

Dimitri Rochman ◽

Alexander Vasiliev ◽

Hakim Ferroukhi

Keyword(s):

Uncertainty Quantification ◽

Nuclear Fuel ◽

Evaluation Method ◽

Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽

Nuclear Data ◽

Data Uncertainty ◽

Evaluation Methodology ◽

Geological Disposal ◽

Fuel Assemblies ◽

Criticality Safety

Presently, a criticality safety evaluation methodology for the final geological disposal of Swiss spent nuclear fuel is under development at the Paul Scherrer Institute in collaboration with the Swiss National Technical Competence Centre in the field of deep geological disposal of radioactive waste. This method in essence pursues a best estimate plus uncertainty approach and includes burnup credit. Burnup credit is applied by means of a computational scheme called BUCSS-R (Burnup Credit System for the Swiss Reactors–Repository case) which is complemented by the quantification of uncertainties from various sources. BUCSS-R consists in depletion, decay and criticality calculations with CASMO5, SERPENT2 and MCNP6, respectively, determining the keff eigenvalues of the disposal canister loaded with the Swiss spent nuclear fuel assemblies. However, the depletion calculation in the first and the criticality calculation in the third step, in particular, are subject to uncertainties in the nuclear data input. In previous studies, the effects of these nuclear data-related uncertainties on obtained keff values, stemming from each of the two steps, have been quantified independently. Both contributions to the overall uncertainty in the calculated keff values have, therefore, been considered as fully correlated leading to an overly conservative estimation of total uncertainties. This study presents a consistent approach eliminating the need to assume and take into account unrealistically strong correlations in the keff results. The nuclear data uncertainty quantification for both depletion and criticality calculation is now performed at once using one and the same set of perturbation factors for uncertainty propagation through the corresponding calculation steps of the evaluation method. The present results reveal the overestimation of nuclear data-related uncertainties by the previous approach, in particular for spent nuclear fuel with a high burn-up, and underline the importance of consistent nuclear data uncertainty quantification methods. However, only canister loadings with UO2 fuel assemblies are considered, not offering insights into potentially different trends in nuclear data-related uncertainties for mixed oxide fuel assemblies.

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