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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
V. Rajagopal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 12 | Number 2 | February 1962 | Pages 218-224
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26060
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental investigation has been made of the self-fluctuations in neutron density in a nuclear reactor, and the response in neutron density for random reactivity inputs, using analog correlation techniques. The analysis of self-fluctuations was based on ion chamber measurements of the fluctuations of neutron intensity at various points. Autocorrelation analysis was then used to find the power spectrum of the fluctuations, which has the shape of square modulus of transfer function. A random reactivity input was realized by using an electromechanical system to convert the white noise of a radioactive source into linear motion of a small neutron absorber. Analysis of the response was made by autocorrelating the reactivity input and cross-correlating the reactivity input and the response in neutron density, and determining their spectra. The amplitude and phase of the reactor transfer function were determined from these spectra. Results are presented on some measurements made on a small reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The measured transfer function agrees with the calculated transfer function.