A practical subcritical rod worth measurement technique based on the improved neutron source multiplication method

Abstract

The control rod worth is a key safety parameter required to be measured in commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Conventionally, the control rod worth is measured after reaching the critical state, which occupies the considerable time in the zero-power physics test. In this study, an efficient control-rod worth measurement technique has been proposed based on the improved neutron-source multiplication method, which can be implemented with the source-range detector count rates in the subcritical states. Moreover, the noise reduction technique has been adopted to smooth the large fluctuation existing in the original signals. In order to verify the engineering performance of the proposed measurement technique, the measured source-range detector count rates during the rod withdrawal process before reaching critical state in a CNP1000 reactor have been employed. It demonstrated that almost all estimated results of control rod worth satisfy the engineering acceptance criteria, except one control rod with the relative difference over 10 %, which indicates the capability of the proposed method in estimating control rod worth.