Preparation of facilities for fundamental research with ultracold neutrons at PNPI

The WWR-M reactor of PNPI offers a unique opportunity to prepare a source for ultracold neutrons (UCN) in an environment of high neutron flux (about 3*10^12 n/cm^2/s) at still acceptable radiation heat release (about 4*10^-3 W/g). It can be realized within the reactor thermal column situated close to the reactor core. With its large diameter of 1 m, this channel allows to install a 15 cm thick bismuth shielding, a graphite premoderator (300 dm^3 at 20 K), and a superfluid helium converter (35 dm^3). At a temperature of 1.2 K it is possible to remove the heat release power of about 20 W. Using the 4pi flux of cold neutrons within the reactor column can bring more than a factor 100 of cold neutron flux incident on the superfluid helium with respect to the present cold neutron beam conditions at the ILL reactor. The storage lifetime for UCN in superfluid He at 1.2 K is about 30 s, which is sufficient when feeding experiments requiring a similar filling time. The calculated density of UCN with energy between 50 neV and 250 neV in an experimental volume of 40 liters is about 10^4 n/cm^3. Technical solutions for realization of the project are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, more detail

Radiation characteristics of REMIX fuel during multiple recycling in VVER-1000 reactors

Changes in the isotopic composition of three REMIX fuel types in the process of operation in a VVER-1000 reactor have been calculated. It has been shown that it is possible to recycle REMIX-A and REMIX-A2 fuel more than five times without a major decrease in its nuclear value. The equivalent dose rate from fresh REMIX fuel assemblies has been calculated depending on the recycle number and the fresh fuel decay time after fabrication. The relative contribution of different radionuclides to the equivalent dose rate has been analyzed. The calculation results for the buildup of 232U and even Pu isotopes depending on the fuel recycle number are presented

Fragment-mass distributions in neutron-induced fission of Th232 and U238 at 33, 45, and 60 MeV

We have measured fission fragment-mass yields for neutron-induced fission of Th232 and U238 at energies 32.8, 45.3, and 59.9 MeV. The experiments were done at quasimonoenergetic neutron beams of the Cyclotron Research Center at Louvain-la-Neuve. To detect the fission fragments, a multisection Frisch-gridded ionization chamber was used. The measurement and data analysis techniques are discussed in detail. The obtained mass yields are compared to model calculations with the intermediate-energy nuclear reaction code MCFX. The MCFX code is used to calculate the fraction of fissioning nuclei after cascade, preequilibrium, and statistical reaction stages. The formation of mass distributions is considered as a result of oscillations of the mass-asymmetry degree of freedom in the potential well calculated with the temperature-dependent shell correction method. The experimental results as well as the results of the model calculations demonstrate that the probability of symmetric fission increases with incident neutron energy for both nuclei. The comparison also shows that the symmetric fission is more enhanced for thorium than for uranium with increasing neutron energy. We also compare U238 results with available experimental data; the Th232 data were measured for the first time. © 2011 American Physical Society