Nuclear Heating Measurement in Critical Facilities and Experimental Validation of Code and Libraries – An Application to Prompt and Delayed γ Nuclear Data Needs

Abstract Energy from prompt and delayed gammas in actual and future nuclear systems are more and more taken into account into design studies as they play an important role in the assessment of performance and safety concerns. Their incomplete knowledge (both prompt and delayed) require to take conservative design margins on local dimensioning parameters, thus reducing the awaited performances or flexibility of these facilities, with costs that are far from being negligible. The local energy photon deposit must be accurately known for Generation-III (Gen-III), Generation-IV (Gen-IV) or the new MTR Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR). The last 2 decades has seen the realization, in Zero Power Reactors (ZPR), of several programs partially devoted to γ-heating measurements. Experimental programs were and are still conducted in different Cadarache facilities such as MASURCA (for SFR), and later in MINERVE and EOLE (for JHR and Gen-III reactors). The adequacy of the γ-heating calculation was compared to experimental data using thermo-luminescent (TL) detectors and γ-fission chambers. Inconsistencies in C/E and associated uncertainties led to improvement of both libraries and experimental techniques. For these last one, characterization for TL and optically stimulated (OSL) detectors (calibration, individual response), and Monte Carlo calculation of charge repartition in those detectors and their environment were carefully checked and optimized. This step enabled to reduce the associated experimental uncertainty by a factor of 2 (8% at 2σ). Nevertheless, interpretation of integral experiment with updated calculation schemes and improved experimental techniques still tend to prove that there are some nuclei for which there are missing or erroneous data, mainly in structural and absorbing materials. New integral and differential measurements are needed to guide new evaluation efforts, which could benefit from consolidated theoretical and experimental modeling techniques.