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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
J. C. Robinson, D. N. Fry
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 42 | Number 3 | December 1970 | Pages 397-405
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-A21226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Small pressure perturbations were introduced into the primary fuel pump bowl of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) operating at its nominal power of 8 MW(th). The experimental neutron flux-to-pressure frequency response was then obtained from a cross-power and auto-power spectral density analysis of the resulting signals from a neutron sensitive ionization chamber and a pressure transducer. By comparing the frequency dependence of the experimental frequency response determined for the reactor operating at power with the frequency response determined from analysis of mathematical models, the selection of the more appropriate boundary condition set from a choice of two possible boundary condition sets was possible. Then, the analytical frequency response was fitted by the least-squares method to the experimental frequency response to obtain the void fraction in the molten salt fuel. A void fraction of 0.61 ± 0.04% was determined from the frequency response; this value compares favorably with a value of 0.6 ± 0.1% determined by other techniques. Conclusions from this work are that the analytical model leads to acceptable results for the neutron flux-to-pressure frequency response and that properly designed dynamic tests involving small reactivity perturbations (introduced by means other than rod motion) can be used to extract specific nuclear parameters for a nuclear system operation at power.