A Reactor Noise Analysis Using Auto-Correlation Function with Time-stamping data

In the conventional study, neutron time series data required for reactor noise analysis have been measured using Single Channel Analyze (SCA) and Multi-Channel Scaler (MCS). However, those method provides only limited information. Currently, there is a new Multi-Channel Analyzer (MCA) with time-stamping capability which can be used to obtain more information. In this study, using the same neutron time-sequence data obtained from a new MCA, prompt neutron decay constants were determined by the conventional variance-to-mean ratio method and the auto correlation function method. The auto correlation function method was one of reactor noise technique and few experiments with the method have been conducted in the past. The experiments were conducted using the Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA). As the results, the decay constants were agreement between the variance-to-mean method and the auto correlation function method within the error range. In addition, the obtained decay constant by the auto-correlation function method had not the detector position dependency.