Monitoring fast neutron sources for accelerator driven subcritical reactor experiments

In the framework of nuclear waste management, minor actinides could be incinerated in subcritical reactors driven by an accelerator coupled to a spallation target. For safety reason, this so-called Accelerator-Driven System (ADS) requires on-line and robust core reactivity monitoring. In such a system, a simple proportional relationship exists between the reactivity and the ratio of the beam current to the thermal power of the reactor core. This relationship is planned to be exploited as a relative reactivity indicator by the measurement of both the beam current delivered by the accelerator and the core neutron flux. The GUINEVERE experiment facility, which is being built at SCK-CEN in Mol (Belgium), will be devoted to the study of such reactivity measurement techniques. This zero power experiment will consist of the coupling of a subcritical fast core to an external source of 14-MeV neutrons originating from fusion reactions between a deuteron beam and a tritium target. In this case, the target evolution over time and target inhomogeneities preclude from using the beam current for reliable reactivity monitoring and therefore the external neutron source intensity must be monitored directly. This paper presents the systems envisioned to achieve such a monitoring and the results of test experiments.