Neutron Noise Analysis with Flash-Fourier Algorithm at the IBR-2M Reactor

Abstract

Neutron noise spectra in nuclear reactors are a convolution of multiple effects. For the IBR-2M pulsed reactor (JINR, Dubna), one part of these is represented by the reactivities induced by the two moving auxiliary reflectors and another part of these by other sources that are moderately stable. The study of neutron noise involves, foremostly, knowing its frequency spectral distribution, hence Fourier transforms of the noise. Traditional methods compute the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation function. We show in the present study that this is neither natural nor real-time adapted, for both the autocorrelation function and the Fourier transform are highly CPU intensive. We present flash algorithms for processing the Fourier-like transforms of the noise spectra.