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

Technical Report · Tue Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993

OSTI ID:5780562

Selby, L C

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

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
220000 -- Nuclear Reactor Technology
440103* -- Radiation Instrumentation-- Nuclear Spectroscopic Instrumentation
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DATA
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FISSION
INFORMATION
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NEUTRON DETECTORS
NEUTRON FLUX
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUMERICAL DATA
RADIATION DETECTORS
RADIATION FLUX
REACTIVITY
REACTOR COMPONENTS
REACTOR CORES
REACTORS
REAL TIME SYSTEMS
RESEARCH AND TEST REACTORS
RESEARCH REACTORS