Patchy nuclear chain reactions

21Citations
Citations of this article
10Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Stochastic fluctuations of the neutron population within a nuclear reactor are typically prevented by operating the core at a sufficient power, since a deterministic (i.e., exactly predictable) behavior of the neutron population is required by automatic safety systems to detect unwanted power excursions. In order to characterize the reactor operating conditions at which the fluctuations vanish, an experiment was designed and took place in 2017 at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility. This experiment however revealed persisting fluctuations and striking patchy spatial patterns in neutron spatial distributions. Here we report these experimental findings, interpret them by a stochastic modeling based on branching random walks, and extend them using a “numerical twin” of the reactor core. Consequences on nuclear safety will be discussed.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Dumonteil, E., Bahran, R., Cutler, T., Dechenaux, B., Grove, T., Hutchinson, J., … Zoia, A. (2021). Patchy nuclear chain reactions. Communications Physics, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-021-00654-9

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free