Simultaneous Determination of the Reactivity and Neutron Value in Kinetic Measurements to Account for Spatial Effects

Abstract

For known neutron value function, the equation of a nonstationary process in a reactor can be put into a form that is identical to the point-kinetic equation. On this basis, a method is proposed for simultaneously determining the reactivity and neutron value functionals directly from kinetic measurements; this makes it possible to correctly account for spatial effects theoretically. A transient process with strong deformation of the neutron flux in a planar reactor is examined. In neutron flux monitoring using a system of point detectors, the proposed procedure evaluates the reactivity to within 5%; according to the indications of individual detectors, the reactivity was found to be 0.8–6 times its true value.