Sensitivity analysis in core diagnostics

Journal article, 2022

In the CORTEX project, methods to simulate neutron flux oscillations were enhanced and machine-learning based tools to determine the causes of measured neutron flux oscillations were developed, using the results of simulations as training and validation data. For a selected combination of those methods and tools, several sensitivity analyses were performed to assess their robustness and trustworthiness. The neutron flux oscillations were simulated using the tool CORE SIM+. It calculates the three-dimensional field of the neutron flux oscillations, which can be used to determine the response of neutron detectors at given locations. For the sensitivity analysis, the neutron flux oscillations were assumed to be caused by the vibration of one fuel element. It was investigated how selected input parameters like the core loading pattern, the burn up of the fuel elements, the neutronic core data, the geometry details of the vibrating fuel element, the chosen detectors, and other noise source parameters like the amplitude of the fuel element vibrations, affect the simulated neutron flux oscillations. A three dimensional fully convolutional neural network had been developed and trained during the CORTEX project to determine the cause and location of perturbations causing given measurements of in-core detectors in pressurized water reactors. The robustness of this network was tested by applying it to the simulated detector readings created during the sensitivity analysis.