Comparison of the Responses of New Reduced-Size Calorimetric Cells Made of Different Structure Materials for High Energy Deposition

Abstract

This paper concerns experimental and numerical works on a new differential calorimeter called CALORRE and validated recently under irradiation conditions in MARIA reactor at low nuclear absorbed dose rate level. Works focus on a specific configuration of CALORRE which was designed especially for the measurement of high nuclear energy deposition rates inside Material Testing Reactors. Due to the high level, a new calibration system was fabricated in order to determine the response of the new configuration under laboratory conditions for a very wide range of electrical power never applied in the literature. The response of the new configuration can be considered linear for this very wide range of electrical power. An analytical calculation shows the contribution of each heat transfer in specific zones. 3D thermal simulations performed by means of COMSOL Multiphysics under irradiation conditions give the predictions of the calorimeter behavior under real conditions (up to 20W.g−1).

Keywords

• calorimeter
• nuclear dose rate
• on-line measurements
• calibration
• irradiation campaign