COMPARISON OF KAPL CLEAN CRITICAL AND SUBCRITICAL EXPERIMENTS WITH CALCULATIONS

Technical Report · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1962

OSTI ID:4652610

Bach, D R; Bunch, S I; Bistline, J A; Cerbone, R J; Feiner, F; Skolnik, W; Slovacek, R E; Weinstein, S

An intensive program of critical and subcritical experiments and associated calculations was conducted on highly enriched, hydrogen-moderated systems. Interest was centered on overall effects such as reactivity, prompt neutron decay constants, and region-wide spectra, and experiments were performed as a function of fuel density, core size, metal to water ratio, and temperature. The effects of theoretical improvements on the agreement between calculations and experiments were studied. The experiments were carried out in the Solid Homogeneous Assembly, Pressurized Test Reactor, pulsed subcritical systems, and a series of subcritical lattices having a volume of 1 cubic foot. The results showed a consistent discrepancy between calculation and experiment in the clean critical experiments, with the calculated reproduction constants being 1 to 3% high. Good agreement was obtained between calculated and measured low-energy spectra in weakly absorbing media but not in highly absorbing media. No consistert discrepancy was observed in the pulsed measurements, but the accuracy was poor. (D.L.C.)

• Research Organization: Knolls Atomic Power Lab., Schenectady, N.Y.
• DOE Contract Number: W-31-109-ENG-52
• NSA Number: NSA-17-034718
• OSTI ID: 4652610
• Report Number(s): CONF-133-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ABSORPTION
CRITICAL ASSEMBLIES
CRITICALITY
DENSITY
ERRORS
FUELS
HOMOGENEOUS REACTORS
HYDROGEN
LIFETIME
MATHEMATICS
MEASURED VALUES
METALS
MODERATORS
PHYSICS
PRESSURE
PROMPT NEUTRONS
PULSES
QUANTITY RATIO
REACTIVITY
REACTOR CORE
RESEARCH REACTORS
SOLIDS
SPECTRA
TEMPERATURE
THERMAL NEUTRONS
VOLUME
WATER MODERATOR
ZONES