Criticality configuration design methodology applied to the design of fuel debris experiment in the new STACY

Gunji, Satoshi; Tonoike, Kotaro; Clavel, J.-B.*; Duhamel, I.*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(1), p.51 - 61, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1798825

The new critical assembly STACY will be able to contribute to the validation of criticality calculations related to the fuel debris. The experimental core designs are in progress in the frame of JAEA/IRSN collaboration. This paper presents the method applied to optimize the design of the new STACY core to measure the criticality characteristics of pseudo fuel debris that simulated Molten Core Concrete Interaction (MCCI) of the fuel debris. To ensure that a core configuration is relevant for code validation, it is important to evaluate the reactivity worth of the main isotopes of interest and their k sensitivity to their cross sections. In the case of the fuel debris described in this study, especially for the concrete composition, silicon is the nucleus with the highest k sensitivity to the cross section. For this purpose, some parameters of the core configuration, as for example the lattice pitches or the core dimensions, were adjusted using optimization algorithm to find efficiently the optimal core configurations to obtain high sensitivity of silicon capture cross section. Based on these results, realistic series of experiments for fuel debris in the new STACY could be defined to obtain an interesting feedback for the MCCI. This methodology is useful to design other experimental conditions of the new STACY.