On the Neutron Noise Diagnostics of Pressurized Water Reactor Control Rod Vibrations. I. Periodic Vibrations

Abstract

Based on the theory of neutron noise arising from the vibration of a localized absorber, the possibility of rod vibration diagnostics is investigated. It is found that noise source characteristics, namely rod position and vibration trajectory and spectra, can be unfolded from measured neutron noise signals. For the localization process, the first and more difficult part of the diagnostics, a procedure is suggested whose novelty is that it is applicable in case of arbitrary vibration trajectories. Applicability of the method is investigated in numerical experiments where effects of background noise are also accounted for.