EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP FOR MULTIPLICATION COEFFICIENT FLUCTUATION STUDY vs. ACCELERATOR PARAMETER DEVIATIONS on the JINR PULSED ACCELERATOR DRIVEN NEUTRON SOURCE

The conception of an electron beam-driven subcritical molten salt safety reactor (MSR) was presented at the International Con-ference on Accelerator-Driven Transmutation Technologies and Application (ADTT) [1]. The essence of the concept is the use of the MSR cascade system to reduce the driving power. The cas-cade reactor could allow diminishing of the beam power down to a value where the electron accelerator could be used. The ques-tion is how much the neutron multiplication coef®cient may be used in the ultimate safety reactor design. The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna) has a facility, which could be named as a prototype of the future accelerator driven subcritical reactor. It is the IBR-30 pulse reactor driven by the S-band electron linac (LUE-40). Here the neutron multiplication coef®cient of 200 (the same as the value of subcriticality k eff = 0:995) from the coupled facilities allows an integral yield of 0:51015 neutrons per second at a pulse width of 4 microseconds. These facilities form the JINR experimental set-up for the study on multiplica-tion coef®cient ¯uctuations vs. deviation of accelerator driven parameters, as well as for the steady state and transient regimes. The experimental set-up for these studies and the ®rst results will be presented. I