Fast-thermal coupled cores in ZPR revisited physical specificities and potentialities for ZEPHYR

International audienceThe development of fast reactor GEN-IV technology at an industrial scale would need asignificant improvement of nuclear data and related uncertainties. For this purpose,fast/thermal coupled configurations performed in MINERVE during the 1970’s have beenrecently revisited. The encouraging results obtained have led to further optimizations in orderto prepare experimental programs in the future ZEPHYR facility to be built in Cadarache.This paper describes the concept of fast/thermal coupled core and its use in the improvementof fast-spectrum nuclear data thanks to integral experiments. An optimized configuration ispresented with several variations in order to widen the possibilities of measurement so as toseparate reactivity effects due to absorption and scattering reactions