Overview of the FASt TEst Reactor (FASTER)

Heidet
SPEAKER:
FLORENT HEIDET
DATE/TIME:
MON, 01/30/2017 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2017 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

Over the past couple years Argonne National Laboratory has been developing a FASt TEst Reactor as part of the DOE-NE Advanced Reactor Campaign in order to address the growing needs for fast neutron irradiation capabilities. FASTER is a 300 MWth sodium-cooled fast reactor relying on well-established technologies in order to provide both reliable testing capabilities and high availability factor. An overview of the FASTER design will be presented. The design process used, core design, plant layout and safety analysis results will all be discussed. Irradiation and test capabilities offered by the FASTER design will also be highlighted, including the closed loops incorporated in the design. A unique feature of FASTER is that not only it offers very high fast fluxes and large irradiation volumes, but it can also offer very high thermal fluxes by making use of the large neutron leakage probability. This would enable FASTER to support R&D for both fast spectrum and thermal spectrum systems.

About the Speaker:

Florent Heidet is a Principal Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory. Florent studied mechanical engineering in France where he obtained a Master of Science in 2006, and nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he obtained a Ph.D. in 2010. Florent joined Argonne National Laboratory where he worked on advanced reactors systems and associated fuel cycles. As part of the collaboration between Argonne and KAERI on developing the Prototype Gen-VI Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor, to start operation in South Korea by 2028, Florent was the lead core designer for the Argonne team. Over the past couple years Florent also lead the core design for the test reactor concept, FASTER, being developed by Argonne as part of the DOE Advanced Reactor campaign. In addition of his work at Argonne, Florent is also involved with the American Nuclear Society where he is serving as an officer of the Reactor Physics Division and in multiple committees.

Detailed Modeling of Fission

vogt
SPEAKER:
RAMONA VOGT

NUCLEAR AND CHEMICAL SCIENCES DIVISION, LLNL

PHYSICS DEPARTMENT, UC DAVIS

DATE/TIME:
MON, 01/23/2017 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2017 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

For many years, the state of the art for treating fission in radiation transport codes has involved sampling from average distributions. In these average fission models energy is not explicitly conserved and none of the outputs are correlated because all particles (fission fragments, neutrons and photons are considered) are emitted independently. However, in a true fission event, the energies, momenta and multiplicities of the emitted particles are correlated. Such correlations are interesting for many modern applications. Event-by-event generation of complete fission events retains information for all particles emitted, making it possible to extract any desired correlation observable. These complete event simulations can be included in general Monte Carlo transport codes.  In this talk, the types of available data for model input and validation are presented.  The physics of one such complete event fission simulation code, FREYA, is described in some detail.  Comparison is then made between some currently available phenomenological models of fission for some important neutron observables.  Specific neutron correlations and their sensitivity to model inputs are then discussed.

About the Speaker:

Ramona Vogt is a staff physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and an adjunct professor of physics at UC Davis.  She obtained an AS degree from Kaskaskia College in 1983 and a BS in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1985.  She received her PhD in nuclear physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1989.   After postdoctoral positions in LLNL and GSI in Darmstadt, Germany she was a staff scientist at LBNL until she returned to take her staff appointment at LLNL in 2007.  She became an adjunct professor of physics at UC Davis in 1995.  She was named Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010 and APS Outstanding Referee in 2016.  She has been active in the APS, serving in various posts for the Executive Committee of the Topical Group on Hadronic Physics since 2008 and is currently a member of the DNP Program Committee.