Dynamics of Power Pulses in a Research Reactor with Neptunium Nuclear Fuel

Resumo

The current trend in neutron-aided scientific research presupposes the development of new high-intensity pulsed sources. One variant of such an installation could be a pulsed reactor with a fissile-isotope core – ²³⁷Np. The present work is devoted to a study of the dynamics of power pulses of a neptunium reactor taking account of fast temperature feedback during pulse buildup. The problem is reduced to a simple model of a single frequency oscillator combined with the equation of single point kinetics of a reactor neglecting delayed neutrons. It is shown that on the basis of such an approximation, owing to feedback on the temperature of a fuel element the estimated energy of accidental power pulses decreases by almost a factor of 10 compared with a calculation neglecting fast feedback.