A qualification report for the CRISTAL package made available to the international community
For the first time, IRSN, in partnership with CEA, ORANO and FRAMATOME, is making validation data from the CRISTAL simulation software package available to the scientific community. This software, used by French manufacturers, makes possible carrying out neutron calculations in order to prevent a criticality accident in nuclear installations in the fuel cycle and in the transport of nuclear materials. Its validation is crucial to accurately estimate the available margins and control the criticality risk. The CRISTAL validation report presents the discrepancies between the CRISTAL results and available experiments.
CRISTAL: the French software suite for carrying out safety-criticality studies
Criticality safety calculations purpose is to study the most suitable, needed, and sufficient measures to prevent the initiating of a chain reaction when handling fissile materials in fuel cycle installations and during the transport of nuclear materials. The study of safety conditions consists of verifying, through calculation, that the restrictions imposed on the criticality control parameters make the system subcritical, in order words, that the effective multiplication factor keff remains strictly lower to 1, with sufficient safety margins.