Power Mapping in a Canada Deuterium Uranium Reactor Using Kalman Filtering Technique

Abstract

For a Canada Deuterium Uranium 600 MWe (CANDU 6) reactor, a new power mapping method has been developed by using detector readings as boundary conditions. In this study, the measured detector readings are combined with the diffusion theory with the Kalman filtering (DIKAL) method. The measured detector readings are transformed into the measured mesh flux through appropriate approximation. And, the difference between calculated and measured mesh flux is filtered out by Kalman filtering technique. Then, the measured mesh fluxes are used as an internal boundary condition in the diffusion equation. The performance of the DIKAL method has been assessed for the various core states, and has been also applied to the calculation of power and flux distribution calculation in the CANDU 6 reactor. Sensitivity studies have shown that DIKAL is quite stable to the detector random and systematic errors. Also, it is shown that the DIKAL approach is more accurate than the currently used flux synthesis approach in CANDU 6 reactors.