Examples of Low Power RR: Research Nuclear Reactor TAPIRO, Italy. Profile 30

The TAPIRO nuclear reactor, located at the ENEA Casaccia Research Centre near Rome, is a fast neutrons source and its design is based on the Argonne Fast Source Reactor — Idaho Falls. The reactor name comes from the Italian acronym TAratura PIla Rapida Potenza ZerO (Fast pile calibration at 0 power). TAPIRO was built in the 1960s and its first criticality was on April 1971. In the frame of an agreement between ENEA and SCK/CEN Mol (Belgium), an extensive neutronic characterization of the TAPIRO source reactor was carried-out (1980-1986). It was found that TAPIRO is able to provide a family of neutron spectra of extremely variable hardness (about pure fission spectrum near the core centre). This remarkable feature makes the TAPIRO most suitable to many metrology applications, also taking into account that a good spherical symmetry of the neutron flux shape was evidenced by the joint ENEA-SCK/CEN experimental campaign.