The Use of experiments on a single fuel element to determine the nuclear parameters of reactor lattices

摘要

The nuclear parameters of a reactor lattice may be determined by critical experiments on that lattice, by theoretical calculations in which only cross sections are used as input, or by methods which combine theory and experiment. Of those methods which combine theory and experiment, the Single Element Method, abbreviated SEM, is shown to have great usefulness. As used here, the method combines experiments on the smallest meaningful unit of fuel - a single fuel element - with a theory which relates the behavior of a lattice of such elements to the experimentally determined behavior of the single element. This particular division of the problem into theory and experiment is useful for at least three reasons.