RAPID-L Highly Automated Fast Reactor Concept Without Any Control Rods (2) Critical experiment of lithium-6 used in LEM and LIM
- Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., 3-6, Otemachi 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8141 (Japan)
- Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, 2-4, Shirakata-shirane, Tokai-mura, Naka-gun, Ibaraki-ken, 319-1195 (Japan)
- Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), 2-11-1, Iwado Kita, Komae-shi, Tokyo, 201-8511 (Japan)
In order to achieve fully automated reactor operation of RAPID-L reactor, innovative reactivity control systems LEM, LIM, and LRM are equipped with lithium-6 as a liquid poison. Because lithium-6 has not been used as a neutron absorbing material of conventional fast reactors, measurements of the reactivity worth of Lithium-6 were performed at the Fast Critical Assembly (FCA) of Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI). The FCA core was composed of highly enriched uranium and stainless steel samples so as to simulate the core spectrum of RAPID-L. The samples of 95% enriched lithium-6 were inserted into the core parallel to the core axis for the measurement of the reactivity worth at each position. It was found that the measured reactivity worth in the core region well agreed with calculated value by the method for the core designs of RAPID-L. Bias factors for the core design method were obtained by comparing between experimental and calculated results. The factors were used to determine the number of LEM and LIM equipped in the core to achieve fully automated operation of RAPID-L. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21167810
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICAPP'02: 2002 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants, Hollywood, FL (United States), 9-13 Jun 2002; Other Information: Country of input: France; 10 refs
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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