Advanced Test Reactor Irradiation Facilities and Capabilities. PHYTRA1: First International Conference on Physics and Technology of Reactors and Applications.
The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is one of the worlds premiere test reactors for performing long term, high flux, and/or large volume irradiation test programs. The ATR is a very versatile facility with a wide variety of experimental test capabilities for providing the environment needed in an irradiation experiment. These different capabilities include passive sealed capsule experiments, instrumented and/or temperature-controlled experiments, and pressurized water loop experiment facilities. The ATR has enhanced capabilities in experiment monitoring and control systems for instrumented and/or temperature controlled experiments. The control systems utilize feedback from thermocouples in the experiment to provide a custom blended flowing inert gas mixture to control the temperature in the experiments. Monitoring systems have also been utilized on the exhaust gas lines from the experiment to monitor different parameters, such as fission gases for fuel experiments, during irradiation. ATRs unique control system provides axial flux profiles in the experiments, unperturbed by axially positioned control components, throughout each reactor operating cycle and over the duration of test programs requiring many years of irradiation. The ATR irradiation positions vary in diameter from 1.6 cm (0.625 inches) to 12.7 cm (5.0 inches) over an active core length of 122 cm (48.0 inches). Thermal and fast neutron fluxes can be adjusted radially across the core depending on the needs of individual test programs. This paper will discuss the different irradiation capabilities available and the cost/benefit issues related to each capability. Examples of different experiments will also be discussed to demonstrate the use of the capabilities and facilities at ATR for performing irradiation experiments.
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