Advances in the Theory of Persistent Neutron Chains
Hill, James Lloyd
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/85938
Description
Title
Advances in the Theory of Persistent Neutron Chains
Author(s)
Hill, James Lloyd
Issue Date
1998
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Axford, Roy A.
Department of Study
Nuclear Engineering
Discipline
Nuclear Engineering
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Engineering, Nuclear
Language
eng
Abstract
The probability of initiating a persistent neutron chain in a multiplying assembly is calculated by solving the trunking problem associated with the Markov process of nuclear fission. For half a century, this problem has been solved by truncating fission multiplicities at two, an action known to reduce accuracy for both uranium and plutonium, which typically release between two and three neutrons per fission on average, with more possible for increasing neutron energy. The contributions of fission reactions which release larger number of neutrons are thus underestimated. This work extends the fission multiplicity up to fifth order, demonstrates that that upper limit is sufficient to provide confident estimates of initiation probabilities, extends Bell theory to allow for multiple neutron release in a single source event, provides estimates of the errors in current predictive models, and suggests an alternative method of extracting information from a probability distribution function.
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