Calculation of the stochastic pulsed Rossi-alpha formula and its experimental verification
Journal article, 2006

The Rossi-alpha formula for subcritical systems driven by a pulsed neutron source was derived with a solution technique that can effectively take different shape functions of the pulsed neutron source into account. The result of derivation showed that the present formula consists of the correlated and uncorrelated terms and an oscillating term whose period was identical to that of the pulsed neutron source. To investigate the validity of the pulsed Rossi-alpha formula and its applicability for the evaluation of the prompt neutron decay constant alpha from measurements, an experiment was performed at the Kyoto University Critical Assembly with a pulsed D-T neutron source. Although it seemed that fitting the present formula to the experimental curves was not practical because of an infinite-series expansion structure of the oscillating term, it was possible to extract only the correlated term, that explicitly includes the alpha value, by a simple data handling procedure. It was found that the measured alpha values agreed with those obtained by the pulsed neutron source method very well. This finding means that the pulsed Rossi-alpha method will be an attractive candidate for the monitoring method of the subcritical reactivity of future accelerator driven systems.

Rossi-alpha

Reactivity measurement

ADS

Author

Yasunori Kitamura

Nagoya University

K. Taguchi

Nagoya University

T Misawa

Kyoto University

Imre Pazsit

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Nuclear Engineering

Akio Yamamoto

Nagoya University

Yoshihiro Yamane

Nagoya University

C. Ichihara

Kyoto University

H. Nakamura

Kyoto University

H. Oigawa

Japan Atomic Energy Agency

Progress in Nuclear Energy

0149-1970 (ISSN)

Vol. 48 1 37-50

Subject Categories

Subatomic Physics

Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1016/j.pnucene.2005.02.001

More information

Latest update

3/5/2018 8