CRITICAL STUDIES OF CORE B FOR THE ENRICO FERMI ATOMIC POWER PLANT (ZPR-III Assembly No. 35)

摘要

This report is concerned with the critical studies of a simplified mockup of the second loading (Core B) for the Enrico Fermi fast reactor. The core consists of a fully enriched, UO2-stainless steel cermet clad in stainless steel and cooled by sodium. The high critical mass found for the reactor mockup led to a series of experiments on reducing neutron leakage from the core by surrounding it with dif¬ferent reflectors. With a nickel reflector in place, meas¬urements were made of the reactivity worths of various engineering features of the Fermi reactor, distributed and local reactivity coefficients, various fission and capture rates and fission ratios, and the prompt-neutron lifetime. Finally, with a nickel oxide reflector in place, some of the above measurements were repeated.