THE DETERMINATION OF COUPLED-CORE-REACTOR KINETIC-PARAMETERS THROUGH FREQUENCY-RESPONSE

A method is proposed to derive three kinetic parameters of a zero-power coupled-core system, namely coupling reactivity DELTA , mean neutron time tau OVER BAR , and neutron generation time LAMBDA of respective cores, from the measured frequency responses. For experimental determination of the parameters as well as frequency response, experiments were carried out with a pile oscillator installed in the Kyoto University Critical Assembly, a light-water-moderated and -reflected critical assembly. The variation of kinetic parameters with the core distance, in particular, was observed with special attention. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by close agreement in the first two of the above three parameters between the theory and the experiment.