Dynamic response of an accelerator driven system to accelerator beam interruptions for criticality

Abstract

Subcritical nuclear reactors driven by intense neutron sources can be very suitable tools for nuclear waste transmutation, particularly in the case of minor actinides with very low fractions of delayed neutrons. A proper control of these systems needs to know at every time the absolute value of the reactor subcriticality (negative reactivity), which must be measured by fully reliable methods, usually conveying a short interruption of the accelerator beam in order to assess the neutron flux reduction. Those interruptions should be very short in time, for not disturbing too much the thermal magnitudes of the reactor. Otherwise, the cladding and the fuel would suffer from thermal fatigue produced by those perturbations, and the mechanical integrity of the reactor would be jeopardized. It is shown in this paper that beam interruptions of the order of 400 ms repeated every second would not disturb significantly the reactor thermal features, while enabling for an adequate measurement of the negative reactivity.