• Doligez, X.
• Billebaud, A.
• Chabod, S.
• Lehaut, G.
• Kochetkov, A.
• Wagemans, J.
• Mellier, F.
• Krasa, A.
• Fourmentel, D.
• Marie-Nourry, N.
• Chevret, T.
• Lecouey, Jean-Luc
• Lecolley, F. R.
• Vittiglio, G.

Abstract

This paper present the measurements of VENUS-F kinetic parameters using the Rossi-Alpha methods. The VENUS-F reactor is a zero-power reactor based in Mol, Belgium at SCK-CEN where the fuel is made of metallic enriched uranium with pure lead in order to simulate the behavior of lead fast reactor. The reactor can be operated under critical when it is coupled with GENEPI-3C. At the beginning of 2014, a measurement campaign was performed in order to estimate the kinetics parameters. In this paper, two measurements are analyzed at two different powers (approximately 2 W and 30 W) with 7 different fission chambers (with a 235-U deposit that varies from 1 g to 10 mg). All the correlation functions needed for the Rossi-Alpha method have been built for each possible set of two detectors in each configuration and values obtained from those functions for the effective delayed neutron fraction are then compared. The absolute necessity to operate at very low power is presented. The final value for the effective delayed neutron fraction is finally estimated to be 730 pcm ± 11 pcm and the prompt neutron generation time is estimated to be equal to 0,041 μseconds ± 0.04 μsec. (authors)

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• Uranium