JINR innovative invention in the fields of neutron physics

Patents, 17 October 2018

The Licensing and Intellectual Property Department of JINR announces that on 2 October 2018, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research received a patent for the invention “Method for changing reactivity in pulsed nuclear power plants of periodic action on fast neutrons with threshold-fissionable isotopes”. The authors of the work are Shabalin Evgeny Pavlovich and Komyshev Gleb Germanovich.

JINR staff congratulates the authors on receiving the patent for their invention!

More details about the invention

Invention relates to the field of neutron physics and the physics of nuclear power plants, namely to the methodsfor changing reactivity in nuclear power plants. Method of changing reactivity in the pulsed nuclear devices of periodic action on fast neutrons with threshold-dividing isotopes consists in the introduction of a structural element, which contains the neutron moderator, into and out of the active installation zone, while the reactivity is increased by means of withdrawalthe structural element and lowered by means of its introduction.
EFFECT: technical result is the implementation of the project of a fundamentally new pulsed neutron source on “threshold” isotopes.

Please, pay attention

Before publishing the article on a scientific-technological development, JINR employees may address to the Licensing and Intellectual Property Department for making an application for a patent.
Important features of the pulse reactor are pulse duration and minimal neutron flux background between pulses. To achieve an acceptable (less than 200 µsec) pulse duration and low background between pulses, it is necessary to change the reactivity as fast as in the IBR-2 facility, but deeper – at least 4% of the effective multiplication factor. The invention allows implementation of the fundamentally new pulse research fast reactor based on “threshold” isotopes. This reactor will provide neutron flux in research neutron beams at least an order of magnitude higher compared to that of the IBR-2 reactor (the most powerful pulsed research reactor at present).
Such concept of research nuclear facility with the use of neptunium and changing reactivity by injection-extraction of the neutron moderating material has not been ever suggested. Such facility upon realization might be the most effective among the existing pulsed neutron sources due to the highest peak neutron flux together with high time averaged flux and acceptable neutron background.

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