ON THE POSSIBLE USE OF THE NEUTRON CURRENT IN-CORE MONITORING AND NOISE DIAGNOSTICS

It is suggested that the information contained in the angular dependen ce of the flux, at least in the lower order moments such as the curren t, partial current or just the Aux gradient, be used in core monitorin g and diagnostics. The motivation for this proposal arises partly From the fact that with today's technology, angularly sensitive detectors, i.e. current or gradient detectors, suitable for industrial applicati ons, can be constructed. The potentials of the use of the current (gra dient), and the enhancement it may give to monitoring and diagnostic a pplications, is demonstrated through some simple model cases. it is sh own that in spatial (noise) source reconstruction, i.e. locating both static and dynamic sources such as anomalies, discontinuities etc., th e enhancement resulting From the use of the current is substantial. (C ) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.