Patchy nuclear chain reactions

Stochastic fluctuations of the neutron population within a nuclear reactor are typically prevented by operating the core at a sufficient power, since a deterministic behavior of the neutron population is required by automatic safety systems to detect unwanted power excursions. Recent works however p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-10
Main Authors: Dumonteil, Eric, Bahran, Rian, Cutler, Theresa, Dechenaux, Benjamin, Grove, Travis, Hutchinson, Jesson, McKenzie, George, McSpaden, Alexander, Monange, Wilfried, Nelson, Mark, Thompson, Nicholas, Zoia, Andrea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chain reactions (nuclear physics)
Clustering
Nuclear engineering
Nuclear reactions
Nuclear reactors
Nuclear safety
Random walk
Spatial distribution
Stochastic models
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Summary:Stochastic fluctuations of the neutron population within a nuclear reactor are typically prevented by operating the core at a sufficient power, since a deterministic behavior of the neutron population is required by automatic safety systems to detect unwanted power excursions. Recent works however pointed out that, under specific circumstances, non-Poissonian patterns could affect neutron spatial distributions. This motivated an international program to experimentally detect and characterize such fluctuations and correlations, which took place in 2017 at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility. The main findings of this program will indeed unveil patchiness in snapshots of neutron spatial distributions -- obtained with a dedicated numerical twin of the reactor -- that support this first experimental characterization of the 'neutron clustering' phenomenon, while a stochastic model based on reaction-diffusion processes and branching random walks will reveal the key role played by the reactor intrinsic sources in understanding neutron spatial correlations.
ISSN:2331-8422