Experiments on cascade-reactor models

There is great interest in our and other contries in cascade blankets. Theoretical and design work has been done on cascade blankets but up to now no experimental work has been done. The first experiments in the world were performed at the All-Russia Reserach Institute of Experimental Physics in 2003–2004 on deeply subcritical uranium— neptunium assemblies. Three series of experiments on cascade and the corresponding single-section blanket models have been peformed. The experiments have confirmed the theoretical conclusions that cascade blankets have positive properties and that 237Np is effective in them; they have provided valuable experience in operating cascade setups with an electron accelerator. The good agreement between the measurements and the calculations has increased confidence in the computational results obtained for cascade blankets with real values of keff. The results of the second and third experiments and a general conclusion concerninig all three series of experiments are presented in this paper.