https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201610601003
Neutron Environment Characterization of the Central Cavity in the Annular Core Research Reactor *
1 Principal R&D Scientist/Engineer, Applied Nuclear Technologies, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
2 Distinguished Technologist, Advanced Nuclear Concepts, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
3 Nuclear Reactor Engineer and Operator, Nuclear Facility Operations, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
** Corresponding author: ejparma@sandia.gov
Published online: 3 February 2016
Characterization of the neutron environment in the central cavity of the Sandia National Laboratories' Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) is important in order to provide experimenters with the most accurate spectral information and maintain a high degree of fidelity in performing reactor experiments. Characterization includes both modeling and experimental efforts. Building accurate neutronic models of the ACRR and the central cavity “bucket” environments that can be used by experimenters is important in planning and designing experiments, as well as assessing the experimental results and quantifying uncertainties. Neutron fluence characterizations of two bucket environments, LB44 and PLG, are presented. These two environments are used frequently and represent two extremes in the neutron spectrum. The LB44 bucket is designed to remove the thermal component of the neutron spectrum and significantly attenuate the gamma-ray fluence. The PLG bucket is designed to enhance the thermal component of the neutron spectrum and attenuate the gamma-ray fluence. The neutron characterization for each bucket was performed by irradiating 20 different activation foil types, some of which were cadmium covered, resulting in 37 different reactions at the peak axial flux location in each bucket. The dosimetry results were used in the LSL-M2 spectrum adjustment code with a 640-energy group MCNP-generated trial spectrum, self-shielding correction factors, the SNLRML or IRDFF dosimetry cross-section library, trial spectrum uncertainty, and trial covariance matrix, to generate a least-squares adjusted neutron spectrum, spectrum uncertainty, and covariance matrix. Both environment character-izations are well documented and the environments are available for use by experimenters.
Work supported by the United States Department of Energy at Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2016
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
