Introduction to Nuclear Engineering

T-2 Assignment (2019-20) April 2020

Name: Yashashree Gedam

MIS: 111610042

Ch. 6. NUCLEAR REACTOR THEORY

Summary

Covering the basics of the ‘nuclear physics‘ in earlier chapters, we now are in the phase
for studying ‘nuclear engineering’. We learnt about neutron flux, Diffusion theory, Fick’s law,
Diffusion Equation general and for various geometries, boundary conditions, diffusion length,
group diffusion method, thermal neutron diffusion and multi group calculation for neutron
moderation.

This chapter specifically focuses on critical reactor theory, its design and its composition.
Criticality is the condition where the balance is maintained between neutrons produced and
lost, i.e., by absorption and leakage. The complexity in the calculation for this is solved by use
of group diffusion method, as discussed in earlier chapter. Further its application is explored in
fast reactors and expanded to thermal reactors, with some modifications and computations.

1. One group reaction equation:

Considering a critical fast reactor which is time independent, consists a homogenous

mixture of fuel and coolant. The reactor has only one region and no other cover. Such reactors
are called Bare reactors.
Given below is the one group equation for a reactor (time dependant).

…………eq. 1
The neutron source is defined as s, which can also be shown as,

For our specified assumption, it is modified as given below.

Where, =

Now,
Where,

, f is called the fuel utilisation. is the cross section of the fuel only and is the cross
section of mixture of fuel and coolant. Now we can define multiplication factor ratio as, k,

k = = =

Finally we obtain.

Which on further solving is seen as,

Where,

and .
2
Here B is called as material buckling and depends on the composition of the reactor.

2. Slab Reactor and other Reactor geometries:

For slab reactor the group eq. is written as,

, with boundary conditions

Solving the above equation for given conditions we get,

We can solve for B as

thus giving, the value of n=1

always because if the reactor is critical, all of these functions except the first die out in time,
and the flux assumes the steady-state shape of the first Eigen-function or fundamental.
Therefore the new value for B2 is obtained as

Which is known as geometric buckling. If is equal to

the geometric buckling then we get a value for which is 1 for infinite medium and
greater than 1 for a finite medium.

We can also find the value of flux for the reactor by making a separate calculation of the
reactor power. Using recoverable energy ER,

where, ER = 3.2 x 10-11 Joules

Similarly various geometries like sphere, infinite cylinder, parallelepiped and finite
cylinder can have their flux calculated by this procedure and each geometry will have different
geometric buckling. For infinite cylinder we might face the Bessel function involved in flux.

3. Maximum-to-Average Flux and Power:

The flux is always maximum at the centre for every geometry bare reactor. Also power density
is highest too at the centre. Therefore it is of importance to calculate ratio of maximum flux to
its average value. This ratio is specific to each of the geometrically different reactor. In some
of the textbooks it is given as,

Average value of flux is given by

(finite sphere) = 3.29

(bare slab reactor) = 1.57
(infinite cylinder) = 2.32
(finite cylinder) = 3.64
4. Thermal Reactors: The thermal reactors consists of fuel, coolant, various structural
materials, and a moderator to slow down the neutrons to thermal energy. Basically for simplicity
we consider it as system consisting of fuel and moderator.
Therefore, total no. of neutrons absorbed can be represented as, Four Factor formula.

The fuel utilisation can also be written as.

But in case of thermal reactors it is called as thermal utilisation.

For thermal reactor we get a new term introduced known as thermal age. It is represented by
τT. It is similar to diffusion length and specifies the distance where the neutron gets slowed
down to thermal energy.

Thus diffusion equation for thermal reactor is,

Where new B2 is then given as,

………eq. 3
Where,

MT2 is called the thermal migration area.

And thus eq. 3 is known as modified one-group critical equation.

5. Applications of Criticality Equation: This equation is applied under the condition that
the reactor does not contain resonance absorbers or nuclei that undergo fast fission. The
reactor is considered a homogenous mixture of fuel (U235) and a moderator.
This can studied in the form of two cases.
(a) The size is specified and composition is to be determined.
(b) The composition of reactor is specified and its critical size must be determined.

Case 1: Size specified: Here, the value of geometric buckling, B2 can be computed. We need to
determine the composition parameters that is k∞ and MT2 in such a way that reactor criticality
is obtained. This values obtained will then satisfy the equation (eq. 3), for modified one-group
reactor equation. Using the macroscopic cross section, we can define Z,
And using thermal utilisation, we get.

The value of total diffusion length is as below.

We then multiply and divide the below eq. by

Now substituting the value of f and LT2 we can solve the modified eq. to get Z. This value can be
used to find the mass of the fuel required for the condition of criticality.
Using atom density and the Z we defined.

If they are energy dependent, then we get.

Case 2: Composition specified: Now the reverse happens, the composition and mass is provided
to determine the size or geometry. This indirectly, leads to finding the value of geometric
buckling, B2. So, we use the modified equation here.

6. Reflected reactors: As we see for the single core reactor the flux goes on decreasing. Thus it
was hinted in previous chapters that if a reflector is considered with a core in reactor then the
flux increases. Also, the flux is continuous with a slope change after interface of the two
regions. The increase in flux is due to the neutrons coming from reflector region to core. Thus,
for reflectors we have a coefficient defining its efficiency to reflect the neutrons back to core.
This coefficient is known as Albedo. This coefficient is helpful for calculations as it shows in the
boundary conditions. It is given as below, for a slab reactor.

α= { 1 - [ ([4D*coth(a/L)]/L) / (1+([2D*coth(a/L)]/L)) ] }