An Integral Method for Solving the Point Reactor Neutron Kinetics Equations with Newtonian Temperature Feedback

Abstract

A numerical integral method to efficiently solve the point kinetics equations with Newtonian temperature feedback is described and investigated, which employs the better basis function (BBF) for the approximation of the neutron density in integral of one time step. The numerical evaluation is performed by the developed BBF code. The code can solve the general non-linear kinetics problems with six groups of delayed neutron. For the application purposes, the developed code and the method are tested by using a variety of problems, including ramp reactivity input with or without temperature feedback. The results are shown that the BBF method is clearly an effective and accurate numerical method for solving the point kinetics equations with Newtonian temperature feedback, and it can be used in real time power reactor forecasting in order to prevent the reactivity accidents.