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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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New coolants, new fuels: A new generation of university reactors
Here’s an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation’s university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
Rubin Goldstein, Louis M. Shotkin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 38 | Number 2 | November 1969 | Pages 94-103
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A19513
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
By means of approximate numerical solutions obtained from a first-order correction to the prompt-jump approximation, good agreement is found with exact numerical solutions of the kinetics equations. Accuracies of <0.1% are obtainable for iterative time steps of as much as 1 sec, provided the reactor remains below prompt-critical [i.e., k(t) < $1]. The accuracy increases as l/β → 0, i.e., as the prompt-neutron lifetime becomes smaller or as the reactor becomes “faster.” This is true for both fast- and slow-reactivity insertion rates, C. Two methods for handling rapid reactivity insertion rates are discussed. One (Method A) is more applicable for C ≈ 1 → 50 $/sec, and the other (Method B, which effectively shifts the time scale) is more applicable for C ≳ 50 $/sec. In the one delayed-neutron-group approximation, analytic results are presented for arbitrary reactivity insertion rates and comparisons are made with previous methods.