A second set of experiments in the Seven Percent Critical Experiment (7uPCX) has been completed. Additionally, an evaluation of the experiments as criticality safety benchmark experiments has been performed. The Reviews of the benchmark evaluation have been completed. This evaluation will be published in the 2013 edition of the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Benchmark Experiments as LEU-COMP-THERM-078 (LCT078). This presentation is a brief tour of these experiments.
The US Department of Energy Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) has supported hands-on criticality safety training at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the past and more recently at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. These courses have provided a practical understanding of the processes involved in nuclear criticality through laboratory exercises for a large number of students over many years. The NCSP sponsored the development of an expanded training course for Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineers that includes a one-week session of classroom training to be offered at LANL and two equivalent one-week hands-on training sessions at the critical experiment facility at the Nevada National Security Site and at the critical experiment facility at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) The class is now being offered as part of the training for Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineers. This paper describes the critical experiment training course offered at SNL.
We have developed a hands-on criticality experiments class. It is part of the US DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) Training and Education Program for Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineers.
This presentation discusses the recent Sandia critical experiments, specifically the Seven Percent Critical Experiment (7uPCX) which is a Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) project. It also discusses why 7uPCX was used, how 7uPCX is operated and presents some 7uPCX results. The presentation concludes by discussing future plans for the critical experiments.
This presentation on critical experiment training at sandia national laboratories includes an overview of four different experiments that are analyzed in depth. Additionally, a description of the experiment process is provided in each section.
This paper describes a set of critical experiments that were done to gather benchmark data on the effects of rhodium in critical systems. Approach-to-critical experiments with arrays of low-enriched water-moderated and -reflected fuel were performed with rhodium foils sandwiched between the fuel pellets in some of the fuel elements. The results of the experiments are compared with results from two Monte Carlo codes using cross sections from ENDF/B-V, ENDF/B-VI, and ENDF/B-VII.
The first approach-to-critical experiment in the Seven Percent Critical Experiment series was recently completed at Sandia. This experiment is part of the Seven Percent Critical Experiment which will provide new critical and reactor physics benchmarks for fuel enrichments greater than five weight percent. The inverse multiplication method was used to determine the state of the system during the course of the experiment. Using the inverse multiplication method, it was determined that the critical experiment went slightly supercritical with 1148 fuel elements in the fuel array. The experiment is described and the results of the experiment are presented.