Prevention of a nuclear excursion upon water flooding of an ocean based Tory II-C

Technical Report · Fri Dec 14 00:00:00 EST 1962

OSTI ID:446287

Stubbs, T

As TORY II-C is presently designed, a nuclear excursion would occur if the core were flooded with water. This is true even if all of the existing control rods were fully inserted. Indeed ANGIE calculations indicate that the reactor would be about 30% super-critical in such a case. There are several methods by which the core may be forced sub- critical under these extreme conditions. We will here consider only the method of introducing, directly into the core, a material which strongly absorbs neutrons. It must be possible to remove this excess `poison` prior to, or during the boost phase. Since the computer codes can be trusted to only approximately 3%, we will, for safety, insist on 40% negative reactivity to be introduced by the excess poison.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 446287
• Report Number(s): UCRL-ID-125501; ON: DE97050853
• Resource Relation: Other Information: DN: Declassified; PBD: 14 Dec 1962
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 NUCLEAR POWER REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
22 NUCLEAR REACTOR TECHNOLOGY
45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
TORY-2C REACTOR
WATER INFLUX
EXCURSIONS
MISSILES
PROPULSION SYSTEMS
LAUNCHING
NUCLEAR POISONS
CRITICALITY
REACTIVITY
A CODES
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
REACTOR KINETICS
REACTOR PHYSICS