THE RESPONSE OF A WATER BOILER REACTOR TO VERY FAST POWER TRANSIENTS AND LINEARLY INCREASING REACTIVITY INPUTS. WATER BOILER EXCURSIONS WITH AN INITIALLY FILLED CORE
A report is made on the Kinetic Experiment on Water Beller Program. The purpose of this program is to examine the dynamic behavior of homogeneous research reactors to obtain the information necessary for the evaluation of the nuclear safety of such reactors. Step inputs of reactivity were systematically increased and the first test core, a spherical core designed for stable power operation at 50 kw, was examined under conditions of 4% reactivity release This is the maximum normally installed in such reactors A 4% reactivity release places the reactor on a 2 millisecond stable period and leads to a peak power of 530 Mw. This represents the fastest intentional power excursion of any thermal reactor. The reactivity released is more than twice that which any other has withstood without damage. The maximum pressure in the system for this transient was a sharp pressure peak of 370 psia. This pressure is well below that required to cause yield of a typical water boller core. (A.C.)
- Research Organization:
- North American Aviation, Inc., Canoga Park, CA (United States). Atomics International Div.
- DOE Contract Number:
- AT-(11-1)-GEN-8
- NSA Number:
- NSA-13-003378
- OSTI ID:
- 4309587
- Report Number(s):
- AECU-3929
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Orig. Receipt Date: 31-DEC-59
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
KINETIC EXPERIMENTS ON WATER BOILERS-"A" CORE REPORT-PART II. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
SPERT PROJECT. Quarterly Technical Report, October-December 1962