William S Slagle

US Patent:

20140270040, Sep 18, 2014

Filed:

Jun 3, 2013

Appl. No.:

13/908153

Inventors:

Westinghouse Electric Company LLC - , US
Vefa N. Kucukboyaci - Pittsburgh PA, US
Yung-An Chao - Shanghai, CN
Robert W. Flammang - Pittsburgh PA, US
William H. Slagle - Frederick MD, US
Patrick J. Sebastiani - Monroeville PA, US

Assignee:

Westinghouse Electric Company LLC - Cranberry Township PA

International Classification:

G01T 3/00
G01T 3/08

US Classification:

376255, 376254

Abstract:

A system and method for measuring and monitoring axial flux to determine subcriticality in a spent fuel pool of a nuclear power plant. In certain embodiments of this invention, one or more neutron detectors are operable to generate signals resulting from neutron interactions in the spent fuel pool, a counting device counts the signals which are generated by the one or more neutron detectors, a connecting means electrically connects the one or more neutron detectors to the counting device, a signal analyzer is used to determine reactivity of the fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool based on the counted signals, a power supply provides power for the neutron detectors, the counting device and the system analyzer, and a software code containing an axial flux curve index is used to correlate the counted signals to determine the subcriticality of the spent fuel pool.