Existing Experimental Facilities and Devices:
- Loop facilities are the key experimental pieces of the reactor equipment that provide its attractive capabilities;
- Irradiation rigs, including capsule-type ones, to test fuel and components of research reactors when heat from tested samples is removed with primary or cooling pool water;
- Critical test facility (physical model of the reactor);
- Hot cells with experimental devices to carry out interim examinations of items under irradiation.
MIR Reactor Highlights:
- Availability of the operating conditions in the loop facilities similar to the maximum to the ones in power and special-purpose reactors to test fuel, fuel elements, FAs, and core components;
- Simulation of the design-basis transient and accidental conditions for fuel of power reactors and getting of information about its state since it could not be got in-situ for safety and economic reasons,
- Simultaneous diverse tests and experiments in different loop facilities and reactor channels (the power in the loop channels and reactor cells can differ by more than 10 times, the reactor integral power being the same);
- Tests in capsule-type rigs inserted in the beryllium moderator channels and fuel channels instead of FAs or FA central space and cooled with primary or pool water;
- Checking of calculation data for irradiation rigs in experiments using the reactor physical model when preparing tests;
- Periodic interim examinations of irradiated samples in a hot cell;
- Analysis of the radioactive products composition in the coolant and equipping of experimental rigs with neutron and fluence monitors, temperature gauges, pressure gauges, FGR gauges, and sample diameter and length gauges;
- Arrangement of irradiation cells of a much greater volume compared to the one of a standard core, for example, by removing seven standard moderator blocks, to test large-size components, assembly modules and core components of special-purpose reactors, as well as creation of a converter to achieve a hard neutron spectrum.
