POWER DISTRIBUTION MEASUREMENTS OF CLAD ELEMENTS IN THE ATRCE CORE

Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1963

OSTI ID:4749258

Poston, J W

Flux distribution measurements were made in the Advanced Test Reactor Critical Experiment Core containing 10 clad and 30 unclad fuel elements to assist in the ATR design and provide experimental data for comparison with nuclear calculations. With reactor conditsons of three and six neck shim rods per neck, flux distribution measurements in the 40 elements, radial measurements in elements 1 to 5, and circumferential measurements in clad element No. 3 were taken. Dysprosium-aluminum foils measured the distributions around the core, but uraniumaluminum foils were used for the fine structure measurements. The average activity in the eight elements that comprised lobe 7 was approximately 50% higher than that in lobe 3 containing the clad fuel elements. Boron-mylar tape attached to the unclad elements reduced the flux shift to approximately 3%. Under the condition of six shim rods per neck, a power-split was not determined because of large flux shift. Utilizing three shim rods per neck, a power-split of 40-65-64 was found. There was little difference between the uranium and dysprosium traverses under the same reactor conditions. The radial, peak-toaverage, power generation rate was 1.98 in the experimental core with no corrections for temperature effects, burnable poison distribution, or the increased fuel loading of the actual ATR Core. (auth)

• Research Organization: Babcock and Wilcox Co. Critical Experiment Lab., Lynchburg, Va.
• NSA Number: NSA-17-015502
• OSTI ID: 4749258
• Report Number(s): TID-18029; ATRCE-108
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ALUMINUM ALLOYS
BW-CA-1
CRITICAL ASSEMBLIES
DISTRIBUTION
DYSPROSIUM ALLOYS
FOILS
MATERIALS TESTING
MEASURED VALUES
NEUTRON FLUX
POWER
REACTOR TECHNOLOGY
REACTORS
RESEARCH REACTORS
URANIUM ALLOYS