Instrumentation and measurements in nuclear environments are key to ensuring the excellence of scientific and technical programmes in numerous fields, ranging from fundamental research to applications, such as:
- Nuclear reactors,
- Fuel cycle,
- Clean-up and dismantling,
- Characterisation of radioactive waste.
The instrumentation implemented in industrial applications of nuclear energy must:
- Provide measurement systems capable of meeting the current and future needs of experimental programmes in research reactors
- Lead to the development of measurement techniques capable of exploiting existing data from nuclear power reactors to improve operating margins and extend the service lives of facilities.
At IRESNE, the Reactor Studies Department (DER) teams design, develop and implement innovative instrumentation for both nuclear reactors currently in operation and future reactors such as Generation IV reactors, and fusion machines like ITER, etc.
The teams also provide solutions to specific instrumentation needs for the future Jules Horowitz research reactor (JHR) currently being built on the Cadarache site. Under COFRACaccreditation, researchers conduct reactor dose measurements in the MADERE facility, which are used to develop data processing methodologies. They ensure the processing of these measurements, particularly for the programme implemented to monitor EDFnuclear reactor vessels.
- In 2021, an innovative optical neutron detection sensor with a large dynamic range was developed.
- A measurement system called MONACO designed to acquire multi-mode, multi-channel signals from fission chambers was developed over a period of about ten years, with its industrial production launched in 2022.