Fuel Conversion Effect on Neutronics Performance of YALINA-Booster Sub-Critical Assembly from HEU to LEU

'YALINA-Booster' is a fast-thermal sub-critical facility intended for investigating the neutronics of accelerator driven systems (ADS) at different sub-criticality levels, different configurations, and fuel compositions for the ADS development. The conversion of the YALINA-Booster assembly with highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel in fast zone (36 and 90% of 235U) to the low enriched uranium (LEU) with 235U of less than 20% without performance losses has been performed. The experimental research program have covered the measurements of sub-criticality levels, spatial distribution of neutron flux, time dependent neutron flux measurements from different neutron source pulse durations, threshold reaction rates, transmutation reaction rates, neutron spectrum, etc. One of the important issues is the validation of the current experimental methods and techniques and their adaptation for use in ADS experiments. In this paper, the main neutronics parameters of YALINA-Booster with HEU and LEU fuels are considered. (author)