Delayed Neutrons From U235 After Short Irradiation

Delayed neutrons are emitted by excited nuclei formed in beta decay of fission products called delayed neutron precursors. About 1% of the total neutrons released in fission are delayed neutrons; however, this small fraction plays an important role in nuclear reactor control. The delayed neutrons determine the time-dependent behavior of reactors, and knowledge of parameters used to predict neutron emission rate is essential for establishing reactivity worths. The delayed neutron yields, decay constants, and the absolute yield for the six-group delayed neutrons have been measured for U-235 and Np-237. This experiment has been called for in the forecast of experiments needed to support operations in the US. The bare U-235 metal assembly Godiva IV at the Los Alamos Critical Experiment Facility (LACEF) provided the source of neutrons. Godiva IV generated about 107 total fissions in the samples for the infinite and instantaneous irradiation needed to accentuate the shorter and longer-lived groups of delayed neutrons. The detection system used in the experiment consisted of 20 He-3 tubes embedded in a polyethylene cylinder. The delayed neutron activity resulting from the fast neutron-induced fission has been measured. The measured absolute yield for U-235 was determined to be 0.0163 " 0.009 neutrons/fission. This value compares very well with the well-established Keepin absolute yield of 0.0165 " 0.0005. The newly measured absolute yield value for Np-237 was 0.0126 " 0.0007, which compares well to the recently reported value of 0.0129 " 0.0004 by Saleh and Parish. The measured values for U-235 are corroborated with period (e-folding time) versus reactivity calculations.

Delayed neutron spectra from individual short pulse (approx. 50 .mu.s) fission of small 235U samples (50 mg) were measured using a small (5 cm OD x 5 cm length) NE 213 neutron spectrometer. The irradiating fast neutron flux (approx. 1013 neutrons/cm2) for these measurements was provided by the Godiva fast burst reactor at the Los Alamos Critical Experiment Facility (LACEF). A high speed pneumatic transfer system was used to transfer the 50 mg 235U samples from the irradiation position near the Godiva assembly to a remote shielded counting room containing the NE 213 spectrometer and associated electronics. Data were acquired in sixty-four 0.5 s time bins and over an energy range 1 to 7 MeV. Comparisons between these measurements and a detailed model calculation performed at Los Alamos is presented.

A comprehensive review is given of existing measurements as of October 1955 on the properties of delayed neutrons from various fissionable isotopes. The relation of these measurements to current theory and practice is discussed.

A series of experiments was performed with the Texas A & M University Nuclear Science Center Reactor (NSCR) to verify 235U delayed neutron emission rates. A custom device was created to accurately measure a sample's pneumatic flight time and the Nuclear Science Center's (NSC's) pneumatic transfer system (PTS) was redesigned to reduce a sample's pneumatic flight time from over 1,600 milliseconds to less than 450 milliseconds. Four saturation irradiations were performed at reactor powers of 100 and 200 kW for 300 seconds and one burst irradiation was performed using a $1.61 pulse producing 19.11 MW-s of energy. Experimental results agreed extremely well with those of Keepin. By comparing the first ten seconds of collected data, the first saturation irradiation deviated ~1.869% with a dead time of 2 microseconds, while the burst irradiation deviated ~0.303% with a dead time of 5 microseconds. Saturation irradiations one, three and four were normalized to the initial count rate of saturation irradiation two to determine the system reproducibility, and deviated ~0.449%, ~0.343% and ~0.389%, respectively.