FISSION REACTOR PHYSICS 1

Antonio Cammi
 Exercises 2

Exercise 1

The material of a critical, spherical, homogeneous, bare pile is compressed uniformly into a
smaller sphere.
Calculate the effective multiplication factor as a function of the ratio of the density d to the
initial density d0, using k∞ = 2.
Similarly, show the effect of uniform expansion.
Exercise 2

Consider a critical, planar pile consisting of a slab of a homogeneous material labelled 1,

extending in thickness from -a to +a sandwiched between two slabs of another
homogeneous material labelled 2 of thickness b.
Assume that the characteristics of the materials are otherwise identical except for k∞
which differs.
Determine the critical condition for each of the following cases:
k∞1 = 1;
k∞1 > 1 and k∞2 > 1;
k∞1 < 1 and k∞2 > 1;
k∞1 > 1 and k∞2 < 1.
For each of these cases, where is the maximum value of the flux?
 Exercises 3

Exercise 3
Initially a reactor is operating at a steady-state power level P0. Using the linearized point reactor kinetics
equations, with one equivalent group of delayed neutrons, determine the transient (for power and
precursors) for a reactivity insertion of ρ = -ρ0 d(t) where ρ0 = 0.02b and d(t) is the Dirac delta function.
Use the following neutron kinetic parameters: β = 0.0065, λ = 0.08 s−1, and L = 5×10−5 s.

Exercise 4
A sodium-cooled fast reactor has the following characteristics:
P0 = 2200 MW (thermal power)
tf = 4.5 sec (time costant for fuel)
Cc = 1260 J/kg °C (thermal heat capacity for sodium)
MfCf = 13300 kJ/K
McCc = 1900 kJ/K
Tin = 430 °C (coolant inlet temperature)
G = 9600 kg/s (coolant mass flow rate)

Assume that the reactor suffers a control failure and undergoes a power transient P(t)= P0(1+0.1t),
where t is in seconds.
1) Determine the outlet temperature transient and plot your results
2) Suppose that the flux trip on the reactor fails and that the transient is terminated by a backup system
that causes the trip if the core outlet temperature exceeds its full power value by more than 200 °C.
At what time will the trip occur? What will the power level be at the time of the trip?
 Exercises 4

Exercise 5

Use the reactor model for a zero dimensional PWR (Kinetics + Thermal hydraulics), but apply the
prompt-jump approximation to simplify the equations. Also assume that af = 0 so that only the
moderator temperature coefficient is effective.
Do the following:
Write the resulting set of equations in State Space form, and define all the terms in the resulting vectors
and matrices.
The parameters have the following numerical values:
L = 10-5 s
b = 0.007
Po = 3000 MWth
am = - 6 pcm/°C
l = 0.08 s-1
Mf = 100000 kg
Cf = 350 J/(kg °C)
Mc = 13000 kg
Cc = 5500 J/(kg °C)
K = 6000 kW/°C
G = 10000 kg/s
Tin = 280 °C