Experimental Study of Transient Behavior in a Subcooled, Water-Moderated Reactor

Reactivity Transients and Steady-State Operation of a Thoria-Urania-Fueled Direct-Cycle Light Water-Boiling Reactor (Borax-Iv)

“…The "break" in the curve that occurs at about this period is based on a single 83-millisecond excursion from saturation. The sharp "break" was also observed for the subcooled excursions on SPERT-I, (8) although it occurred at a period approximately twice that in BORAX-IV. For a given initial period, the peak power increases as the initial core temperature is increased.…”

A Review of Criticality Accidents 2000 Revision

“…This accident occurred in a chemical processing plant that accepted, among other items, spent fuel elements from various reactors. The fissile material involved in the accident (34 kg of enriched uranium, U (91 ), in the form of uranyl nitrate concentrated to about 170 g U/1) was stored in a bank of cylindrical vessels with favorable geometry. The initiation of a siphoning action, inadvertently caused by an air sparging operation, resulted in the transfer of about 200 / of the solution to a 15,400 / tank containing about 600 1'of water.…”

Civilian Power Reactor Program. Part Iii. Book 5. Status Report on Boiling Water Reactors Technology as of 1959

“…To date, most of the reported physics data specifically applicable to boiling water reactors have been obtained from BORAX (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) Special Power Excursion Tests (SPERT) (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19) and EBWR (1,2,20,21,22) experiments. These data have been largely concerned with the over-all behavior of boiling water reactors, and the physics data obtained are not of the basic type but are more in the nature of prototype experiments.…”