Publications Details

Integral Experiment Request 209 (CED-2 Summary Report)

Harms, Gary A.; Kahler, Albert C.; Miller, Thomas M.; Heinrichs, David P.

This report examines proposed Seven Percent Critical Experiment (7uPCX) experiments with fuel arrays larger than would be critical when fully reflected. In these experiments, the reactivity of the assembly will be controlled by varying the moderator/reflector level in the core tank. The analysis uses two configurations, each completely filling the 45x45 fuel rod array with fuel rods and water holes, as representative examples of the proposed experiments. The proposed configurations are compared to the experiments documented in LEU-COMP-THERM-078 [Reference 1] and to fully-reflected experiments with the same fully-loaded fuel arrays that are poisoned with boron in the moderator. The conclusion is drawn that the proposed experiments can be performed with acceptably low uncertainties given a calibrated moderator/reflector level measurement system.