Design and conception of an experiment setup for X-Ray absorption spectroscopy on radioactive material

In the field of the nuclear cycle waste management, the law of december 30, 1991(article 4) gives the frame of the research programs to be conducted. This should lead to o political decision concerning the end of the nuclear fuel cycle. To date, efforts are coordinated by three research groups: PRACTIS, GEDEON and FORPRO. This work, dealing with the development of a radioactive cell for X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy measurements (XAS) is part of PRACTIS goals. It devises into two parts that deal with the conception of the experiment setup (Chapter I) and with the first test that been carried out with X-ray Absorption measurements on radioactive materials (Chapter II), respectively. An introduction on the nuclear fuel cycle and the use of synchrotron radiation for XAS is also given. More precisely, in the first part of this work, we deal with the difficulties that are related to the development of such devises for radioactive samples on a synchrotron beam line. Two constrains have to be taken into account: the technical aspect and the safety aspect. In the second part, we consider the use of grabbing additional structural information on the actinide complexes, both in liquid and solid phases (as amorphous phases for instance). These data on the local order (EXAFS), as well as on the electronic information that can be obtained (XANES) are to be completed with results of the other probing techniques. (author)