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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Researchers use one-of-a-kind expertise and capabilities to test fuels of tomorrow
At the Idaho National Laboratory Hot Fuel Examination Facility, containment box operator Jake Maupin moves a manipulator arm into position around a pencil-thin nuclear fuel rod. He is preparing for a procedure that he and his colleagues have practiced repeatedly in anticipation of this moment in the hot cell.
Nicolas Leclaire, Tatiana Ivanova, Eric Latang, Emmanuel Girault, Jean-François Thro
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 161 | Number 2 | February 2009 | Pages 188-215
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-86
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
From 1998 to 2004, a series of critical experiments referred to as the fission product (FP) experimental program was performed at the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique Valduc research facility. The experiments were designed by Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûretà NuclÃaire (IRSN) and funded by AREVA NC and IRSN within the French program supporting development of a technical basis for burnup credit validation. The experiments were performed with the following six key fission products encountered in solution either individually or as mixtures: 103Rh, 133Cs, natNd, 149Sm, 152Sm, and 155Gd. The program aimed at compensating for the lack of information on critical experiments involving FPs and at establishing a basis for FPs credit validation. One hundred forty-five critical experiments were performed, evaluated, and analyzed with the French CRISTAL criticality safety package and the American SCALE5.1 code system employing different cross-section libraries. The aim of the paper is to show the experimental data potential to improve the ability to perform validation of full burnup credit calculation. The paper describes three phases of the experimental program; the results of preliminary evaluation, the calculation, and the sensitivity/uncertainty study of the FP experiments used to validate the APOLLO2-MORET 4 route in the CRISTAL criticality package for burnup credit applications.