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International audience; Fuel debris have a distinct neutron signature that can be detected to locate the said debris in a damaged nuclear power plant. Neutron measurement in a damaged PCV environment is however submitted to severe deployments constraints, including a high-dose-rate gamma background and limited available space. The study was therefore oriented towards small fission chambers (FC), with U-235-enriched active substrates. To investigate the expected performance of the FC in various irradiation conditions, a numerical model of the detector head was built. We describe the elaboration and experimental calibration of the numerical model and the Monte Carlo study of the fission rate inside U-235 coatings per generated neutron. The evaluation of a representative calibration coefficient then allowed us to carry out a multi-parameter performance study of a FC underwater, aiming at computing an explicit response function linking, on the one hand, the activity and spatial distribution of neutron emitters in a water container, with, one the other hand, the expected count rates measured by a fission chamber as a function of its radial and axial position inside the water volume. The FC underwater behavior was subsequently corroborated by a measurement campaign on a FC response, set at different positions inside a water drum, as a function of its axial and radial distance to a Cf-252 neutron source attached near the center of the container. We finally present an approach in which fuel debris localization is defined as an Inverse Problem, solvable with a Maximum-Likelihood Expectation Maximization (ML-EM) iterative algorithm. The projector matrix is built by capitalization on the results of the previously consolidated numerical studies. The ML-EM was tested on simulated data sets with a varying number of active voxels. Our first results indicate that, for a thermal neutron flux in the order of 10 n.cm−2.s−1 at the detector, originating voxels are identified with a spatial resolution in the radial plane in the order of 10 to 100 cm2.

International audience; This work aims at assessing the performance of a 235U enriched fission chamber in order to localize fuel debris, prior to dismantling operations, in a flooded primary containment vessel of a damaged nuclear reactor such as Fukushima Daiichi. Based on both a comprehensive scan of the environment and the detection of neutrons emitted by the melted core, fuel debris can be localized. In this paper, we carry out a simulation study using the MCNP6 code to investigate fission chamber response in the frame of fuel debris localization measurements in a damaged nuclear reactor. The CFUF34 fission chamber (manufactured by PHOTONIS) and the primary containment vessel of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 were chosen to conduct this work. Impact of different parameters were investigated with MCNP6, such as: neutron energy, water temperature, fission chamber position (altitude, lateral shift, and rotation), and sensitivity loss due to sediments potentially covering fuel debris. In summary, we show that fuel debris should be sought by their thermal neutron signature at a distance of a few centimeters and that potential rotational movements of the fission chamber up to 60° have a limited impact on signals measured. We also show that sensitivity loss due to sediments potentially covering fuel debris has been evaluated on the order of a factor 10 considering a 30 cm-thick sediment layer. On the other hand, experiments were performed to assess the impact of a strong gamma dose rate on fission chamber measurements. These irradiation trials involved a CFUE32 fission chamber (also manufactured by PHOTONIS) available in our laboratory and three different irradiation means: an X-ray tube, an 192Ir source, and a linear electron accelerator. These experiments enable to draw the conclusion that the fission chamber is not impacted by the gamma dose rate up to 104 Gy h−1, which is in good agreement with specifications provided by the manufacturer (PHOTONIS). In addition, no performance degradation was observed after an integrated gamma dose of 2200 Gy on the fission chamber in a 10 min irradiation. However, when the fission chamber is irradiated by gamma dose rates above 104 Gy h−1 (upper limit of the operating domain specified by PHOTONIS), a significant gamma background is observed. Nevertheless, as the gamma dose rates at Fukushima Daiichi should not exceed 103 Gy h−1, fission chamber measurements performed towards fuel debris localization in the primary containment vessels of the units would not be affected by the severe gamma-ray irradiation.