Nuclear Engineering Commons^™

Time Dependent Non-Extinction Probability For Fast Burst Reactors, Michael Gregson

Nuclear Engineering ETDs

Sandia National Laboratories has successfully operated fast burst reactors over the past four decades. Fast burst reactors refer to a type of reactor that is able to achieve intense neutron pulses in very short periods of time using fissile material. Typically these systems are comprised of enriched metallic uranium fuel. During operation of a fast burst reactor, a phenomena known as a pre-initiation has been known to take place. A pre-initiation occurs when the neutron population exceeds some fiducial prior to achieving the final reactivity state in a pulse operation. Reactivity is determined from the physical configuration of the reactor …