Neutronics experiment on a helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) breeder blanket mock-up

Neutronics R&D efforts in support of the European breeder blanket development programme

“…The associated uncertainties of the Tritium production due to nuclear data uncertainties were assessed by making use of available co-variance data from different sources. The major contribution to the sensitivities was shown to come from the materials contained in the TBM, in particular the Beryllium neutron multiplier and the breeder ceramics constituents 6 Li and 16 O. With the calculated sensitivity profiles and the available co-variance data, the crosssection induced uncertainties of the Tritium production have been assessed at a level of 2.8 %.…”

Design optimisation and measuring techniques for the neutronics experiment on a HCLL–TBM mock-up

“…(a) Li 2 CO 3 pellets will be used as in the previous TBM-HCPB mockup experiment [1], as it is a well established technique [2]. Stacks of few pellets will be located at different depths in symmetric rows in order to have independent measurements by ENEA and by FZK (and also by JAEA) (Fig.…”

“…This is a followup experiment to a similar one on the helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) concept [1], conducted previously at the Frascati 14-MeV neutron Generator (FNG), which provided validation of calculations and of nuclear data for tritium production in that system, as well as an assessment of the related uncertainties.…”

The EFF project status and the NEA nuclear data services

“…The NEA Data Bank has carried out a complete analysis, including transport, sensitivity and uncertainty (S&U) studies of several of these experiments. In particular the cross section S&U analyses have proved to be useful in guiding the preparation of the experimental setup, for the interpretation of the experimental measurements, and assessing the uncertainties linked to the basic nuclear data [8][9][10][11].…”

“…In the frame of the EFF/EAF projects, activation experiments have been carried out on steels (AISI-316, F82H, MANET, Eurofer-97), Fe, V, V-alloys, Cu, CuCrZr, W, [10]. The comparison of measured nuclear quantities, such as the neutron flux spectra, with those predicted by calculation using JEFF-3.1 (including EFF cross sections) show very good agreement as seen for the neutron flux spectrum in Be in the mock-up; the obtained ratio of the calculated to the experimental value (C/E) of the activation reaction rates is shown in Fig.…”