MIRTE: An experimental program designed to test the reactivity worth of several structural materials

In the framework of its missions on the assessment of the criticality event, IRSN has decided to perform a new critical experimental program dealing with various structural materials to address the need of criticality calculation codes and nuclear data validation. Phase-I of the MIRTE Program, which is on-going in the Valduc facility, will consist of 42 sub-critical approaches extrapolated to critical conditions using the neutron amplification method, including reproducibility and 'reference', also called replacement, experiments. The 42 experiments, which will be completed in the middle of the year 2010, will be used to evaluate the eventual bias due to test structural materials. (authors)