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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
A. F. Debosscher, W. L. Dutre
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 69 | Number 3 | March 1979 | Pages 347-353
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE79-A19951
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper deals with the exact stochastic analysis of the low-frequency neutron density fluctuations in an on-off controlled nuclear power reactor without delayed neutrons and perturbed by Gaussian white reactivity noise. The stochastic process, being Markovian, is completely characterized by its first-order probability density function (pdf) and the transition pdf The first-order pdf is the normalized solution to the time-independent Fokker-Planck equation (FPE). Using this pdf, a general expression for the moments is obtained. The conditions for stochastic stability in probability, in the mean, and in the mean-square are derived. The time-dependent FPE is solved using the Laplace transform technique, which results in four distinct expressions for the transition pdf, according to the relative magnitude of initial and final reactor power with respect to the regulator level. After Laplace inversion, a physical interpretation of the controller's effect on the stochastic process becomes possible. Finally, making use of the obtained pdf's, the spectral density of the reactor power fluctuations is calculated.