Test Results of an Innovative and Modular Sensor Design for Fission Chamber Studies

Abstract

Since many years, the Instrumentation, Sensors and Dosimetry laboratory at CEA Cadarache has been working to propose innovative and robust design of fission chambers. In this framework, few simulation tools like Chester or PyFc were developed to make detector prototyping and optimisation possible. Up to now, the code experimental validations are scarce mainly because of the lack of flexibility of regular fission chambers. In order to set up an experimental database for code validation, an innovative modular twin fission chamber, the CFTM, was designed. It allows to set with precision the inter-electrode gap, the filling gas pressure as well as the fissile deposit used. This detector was irradiated in Minerve zero power reactor in order to gather results for code validation. Thanks to a calibration procedure, a bank of experimental results is available for simulation validation.