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The YALINA Booster zero power facility is a subcritical assembly located in Minsk (Belarus). This assembly has the special feature of operating on fast and thermal neutron spectra in different zones. The fast zone of the assembly uses a lead matrix and uranium fuels with different enrichments: 90% and 36%, 36%, or 21%. The thermal zone of the assembly contains 10% enriched uranium fuel in polyethylene matrix. This study discusses the high enriched to low enriched fuel conversion. In order to increase the neutron multiplication of the assembly loaded with low (21%) enriched fuel in the fast zone, the number of fuel rods in the thermal zone cannot be augmented. Consequently, the effective multiplication factor of the configuration with 21% enriched uranium fuel in the fast zone has been enhanced by changing the position of the boron carbide and the natural uranium absorber rods, located in-between the fast and the thermal zones, to form a circular rather than a square arrangement. The MCNP computer simulation results obtained with the circular arrangement of the absorber rods are in good agreement with the experimental data.

This study introduces a new correction factor to obtain the experimental effective multiplication factor of subcritical assemblies by the point kinetics formulation. The correction factor is defined as the ratio between the MCNP6 prompt neutron decay constant obtained in criticality mode and the one obtained in source mode. The correction factor mainly takes into account the longer neutron lifetime in the reflector region and the effects of the external neutron source. For the YALINA Thermal facility, the comparison between the experimental and computational effective multiplication factors noticeably improves after the application of the correction factor. The accuracy of the MCNP6 computational model of the YALINA Thermal subcritical assembly has been verified by reproducing the neutron count rate, Rossi-α, and Feynman-α distributions obtained from the experimental data.

This study compares Monte Carlo and deterministic neutronics analyses of the zero-power YALINA Thermal subcritical assembly, which is located in Minsk, Belarus. The YALINA Thermal facility consists...

The prompt decay constant method and the area-ratio (Sjostrand) method constitute the reference techniques for measuring the reactivity of a subcritical system using Pulsed Neutron Source experiments (PNS). However, different experiments have shown that in many cases it is necessary to apply corrections to the experimental results in order to take into account spectral and spatial effects. In these cases, the approach usually followed is to develop different specific correction procedures for each method. In this work we discuss the validity of prompt decay constant method and the area-ratio method in the Yalina-Booster subcritical assembly and propose a general correction procedure based on Monte Carlo simulations.

The development of a reactivity monitoring system for subcritical reactors is a major task prior to industrial scale accelerator driven system (ADS) construction. Within the 6th European Framework Program, the IP-EUROTRANS project has performed a series of experiments at the Yalina-Booster subcritical assembly located at the Joint Institute for Power and Nuclear Research (JIPNR) of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, using a continuous (D, T) (fusion) neutron source in pulsed and continuous mode with short interruptions (beam trips). In this paper, the implementation and results of three different monitoring techniques intended to operate with continuous neutron sources will be presented, namely the source-jerk technique, the prompt decay constant technique and the current-to-flux technique. The results will be compared with the values of the reactivity obtained using the pulsed source in PNS experiments, discussed in detail in another paper.

In subcritical assemblies, the Bell and Glasstone spatial correction factor is used to correct the measured reactivity from different detector positions. In addition to the measuring position, several other parameters affect the correction factor: the detector material, the detector size, and the energy–angle distribution of source neutrons. The effective multiplication factor calculated by computer codes in criticality mode slightly differs from the average value obtained from the measurements in the different experimental channels of the subcritical assembly, which are corrected by the Bell and Glasstone spatial correction factor. Generally, this difference is due to (1) neutron counting errors; (2) geometrical imperfections, which are not simulated in the calculational model, and (3) quantities and distributions of material impurities, which are missing from the material definitions. This work examines these issues and it focuses on the detector choice and the calculation methodologies. The work investigated the YALINA Booster subcritical assembly of Belarus, which has been operated with three different fuel enrichments in the fast zone either: high (90%) and medium (36%), medium (36%), or low (21%) enriched uranium fuel.

This paper compares the numerical results obtained from various nuclear codes and nuclear data libraries with the YALINA Booster subcritical assembly (Minsk, Belarus) experimental results. This subcritical assembly was constructed to study the physics and the operation of accelerator-driven subcritical systems (ADS) for transmuting the light water reactors (LWR) spent nuclear fuel. The YALINA Booster facility has been accurately modeled, with no material homogenization, by the Monte Carlo codes MCNPX (MCNP/MCB) and MONK. The MONK geometrical model matches that of MCNPX. The assembly has also been analyzed by the deterministic code ERANOS. In addition, the differences between the effective neutron multiplication factor and the source multiplication factors have been examined by alternative calculational methodologies. The analyses include the delayed neutron fraction, prompt neutron lifetime, generation time, neutron flux profiles, and spectra in various experimental channels. The accuracy of the numerical models has been enhanced by accounting for all material impurities and the actual density of the polyethylene material used in the assembly (the latter value was obtained by dividing the total weight of the polyethylene by its volume in the numerical model). There is good agreement between the results from MONK, MCNPX, and ERANOS. The ERANOS results show small differences relative to the other results because of material homogenization and the energy and angle discretizations.The MCNPX results match the experimental measurements of the 3 He(n,p) reaction rates obtained with the californium neutron source.

One of the most reliable experimental methods for measuring the subcriticality level of a nuclear fuel assembly is the Sjostrand method applied to the reaction rate generated from a pulsed neutron source. This study developed a new analytical methodology simulating the Sjostrand method, which allows comparing the experimental and analytical reaction rates and the obtained subcriticality levels. In this methodology, the reaction rate is calculated due to a single neutron pulse using MCNP/MCNPX computer code or any other neutron transport code that explicitly simulates the delayed fission neutrons. The calculation simulates a single neutron pulse over a long time period until the delayed neutron contribution to the reaction rate is vanished. The obtained reaction rate is then superimposed to itself, with respect to the time, to simulate the repeated pulse operation until the asymptotic level of the reaction rate, set by the delayed neutrons, is achieved. The superimposition of the pulse to itself was calculated by a simple C computer program. A parallel version of the C program is used due to the large amount of data being processed, e.g. by the Message Passing Interface (MPI). The analytical results of this new calculation methodology have shown an excellent agreement with the experimental data available from the YALINA-Booster facility of Belarus. This methodology can be used to calculate Bell and Glasstone spatial correction factor.

A subcritical zero-power source-driven coupled core, the YALINA-Booster, has been constructed for experimental investigations of neutron kinetics of source-driven systems. In this study, the reactivity of two subcritical configurations has been determined by the area ratio method. The prompt neutron decay constants have been evaluated through slope fitting of the prompt neutron decay as well as through the pulsed Rossi-α method. It is shown that the slope fitting method and the pulsed Rossi-α method give stable results whereas the area ratio method results show spatial dependence. The reasons for the spatial spread are addressed.