Design of an irradiation facility with a real-time radiation effects monitoring capability

摘要

An in-core irradiation facility for radiation effects testing with a real-time monitoring capability has been designed for the 1.1 MW TRIGA Mark Ⅱ research reactor at The University of Texas at Austin. The facility is larger than any currently available non-central location in a TRIGA, supporting testing of larger electronic components as well as other in-core irradiation applications requiring significant volume such as isotope production or neutron transmutation doping of silicon. This article presents the layout and characterization of the large in-core irradiation facility and the real-time electronics performance monitoring capability it is designed to support. To demonstrate this capability, an experimental campaign was conducted where the real-time current transfer ratio for 4N25 general-purpose optocouplers was obtained from in-situ voltage measurements. The resultant radiation effects data - current transfer ratio as a function of neutron and gamma dose - was seen to be repeatable and exceptionally finely resolved. Therefore, the real-time capability at UT TRIGA appears competitive with other effects characterization facilities in terms of number and size of testable samples while additionally offering a novel real-time, in-core monitoring capability.