Regular Article

Analysis of the preliminary campaign for the PETALE program

¹ Laboratory for Reactor Physics and Systems behaviour (LRS), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
² Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, LPSC-IN2P3, 38000 Grenoble, France
³ SUBATECH, CNRS/IN2P3, IMT-Atlantique, 44307 Nantes, France
⁴ CEA, DES, IRESNE, DER, Cadarache, 13108 Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance, France
⁵ Nuclear Energy and Safety Research Division (NES), Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), 5232 Villigen, Switzerland

^* e-mail: laureau.axel@gmail.com

Received: 10 November 2022
Received in final form: 28 February 2023
Accepted: 24 April 2023
Published online: 14 June 2023

Abstract

The PETALE program aims to provide new experimental data to constrain the stainless steel nuclear data. In this frame, a preliminary measurement campaign has been performed to characterize the neutron flux in key positions of the CROCUS reactor and to develop analysis tools. During this preliminary campaign detailed in the present paper, an efficiency ratio technique has been developed and tested to speed up HPGe measurements by a factor of 30. A second objective of the campaign concerns the propagation of nuclear data uncertainty from the core neutron cross-sections to the reaction rates in the dosimeters. Uncertainties in the core cross sections, such as the uranium cross section, are nuisance parameters that add uncertainty to the dosimeter reaction rate calculation. This component must be fully characterized with covariances to constrain the metal reflector component for Bayesian assimilation. The experimental results are compared to the calculations with different nuclear databases for the nuclear data uncertainty propagation. A good agreement is obtained with the ENDF/B-VII.1 database and a systematic underestimation of around 5–10% in the fast range is observed with the ENDF/B-VIII.0 and JEFF-3.3 databases.