Performance of Higher Order Campbell methods, Part II: calibration and experimental application

Abstract

Applying Higher Order Campbelling methods in neutron flux monitoring with fission chambers is advantageous due to their capabilities to suppress the impact of unwanted noises and signal contributions (such as gamma radiation). This work aims to verify through experimental results that the basic assumptions behind the Higher Order Campelling methods are valid in critical reactors.The experiments, reported in this work, were performed at the MINERVE reactor in Cadarache. It is shown that the calibration of a fission chamber and the associated electronic system is possible in higher order mode. With the use of unbiased cumulant estimators and with digital processing, it is shown that over a wide count rate range, accurate count rate estimation can be achieved based on signal samples of a few ms, which is a significant progress compared to similar experimental results in the literature. The difference between the count rate estimated by pulse counting and by the Higher Order Campelling is less than 4%.The work also investigates the possibility of monitoring transient events. For this purpose, a control rod drop event was followed in Higher Order Campbelling mode.