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Experimental evaluation of an instrumented synthesis method for the real-time estimation of reactivity. Master's thesis

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5780562

This research is part of an investigation into the feasibility of using reactor-generated signals in an instrumented synthesis method for the real-time estimation, of reactivity. The method utilizes in-core neutron detectors to evaluate local core power distributions for eventual use in an on-line controller. Although numerical evaluation of the synthesis method has proven successful, this experimental work was conducted to determine if the signals provided by actual in-core sensors in an operating reactor could be used with this technique. For this study, an instrumentation system was designed and built to obtain neutron flux data from three fission chamber neutron detectors. This instrumentation system was installed in the 5 Mw(thermal) research reactor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MITR-II). The flux data resulting from the experiments was used to determine the optimal locations for additional detectors to be used in future experiments and to show the limitations and difficulties of this method. Recommendations are presented for correcting these short-comings in the research and for future areas of study.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge, MA (United States)
OSTI ID:
5780562
Report Number(s):
AD-A-268920/6/XAB; CNN: DE-FG02-92ER75710
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English