Measurements of effective delayed neutron fraction in a fast neutron reactor using the perturbation method

Abstract: A perturbation method is proposed to obtain the effective delayed neutron fraction β_eff of a cylindrical highly enriched uranium reactor. Based on reactivity measurements with and without a sample at a specified position using the positive period technique, the reactor reactivity perturbation Δρ of the sample in β_eff units is measured. Simulations of the perturbation experiments are performed using the MCNP program. The PERT card is used to provide the difference dk of effective neutron multiplication factors with and without the sample inside the reactor. Based on the relationship between the effective multiplication factor and the reactivity, the equation β_eff=dk/Δρ is derived. In this paper, the reactivity perturbations of 13 metal samples at the designable position of the reactor are measured and calculated. The average β_eff value of the reactor is given as 0.00645, and the standard uncertainty is 3.0%. Additionally, the perturbation experiments for β_eff can be used to evaluate the reliabilities of the delayed neutron parameters. This work shows that the delayed neutron data of ²³⁵U and ²³⁸U from G.R. Keepin's publication are more reliable than those from ENDF-B6.0, ENDF-B7.0, JENDL3.3 and CENDL2.2.