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Investigation of clay and neutron absorbers’ roles in the genesis and evolution of Oklo natural nuclear reactors

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Abstract

Since their discovery, the Oklo natural nuclear reactors were subject of many detailed field studies, sample analysis and criticality simulations. The present article is dedicated to advanced simulations of Oklo cores using a custom Python code to generalize and automate MCNP criticality calculations. The impacts of both the initial neutron absorbers and the clay fraction, which define the initial and evolving mineralogical environment, were studied by means of parametric simulations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Energy and Smart Systems, Faculty of Science and Technology, Khemis Miliana University, Khemis Miliana, Algeria

    S. E. Bentridi & D. Benzaid

  2. Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, 67000, Strasbourg, France

    B. Gall

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

    H. Hidaka

  4. DAC-HRL, Faculty of Science, University Ferhat ABBAS Setif-1, Setif, Algeria

    N. Amrani

  5. CNRS, LHyGeS UMR7517, 67084, Strasbourg, France

    F. Gauthier-Lafaye

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  1. S. E. Bentridi
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  6. F. Gauthier-Lafaye
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Contributions

SEB: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Writing—Original Draft. BG: Conceptualization, Software, Supervision, Writing—Review. HH: Resources, Validation. DB: Visualisation, Writing—Review. NA: Conceptualization. Writing—Review. FGL: Conceptualization, Supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to S. E. Bentridi.

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Bentridi, S.E., Gall, B., Hidaka, H. et al. Investigation of clay and neutron absorbers’ roles in the genesis and evolution of Oklo natural nuclear reactors. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 138, 646 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04279-5

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