Localization of a vibrating control rod pin in pressurized water reactors using the neutron flux and current noise

It has been proposed that the fluctuations of the neutron current called th e current noise, can be used in addition to the scalar noise in reactor dia gnostic problems. The possibility of the localization of a vibrating contro l rod pin in a pressurized water reactor control assembly is investigated b y using the scalar neutron noise and the two-dimensional radial current noi se as measured at one central point in the assembly. Art explicit localizat ion technique is elaborated in which the searched position is determined as the absolute minimum of a minimization function. The technique is investig ated in numerical simulations. The results of the simulation tests show the potential applicability of the method.