Determination of the neutron effective multiplication factor for a PWR spent fuel assembly

An exponential experiment system which is composed of a neutron detector, a signal analysis system and a neutron source, Cf-252 has been installed in order to experimentally determine the neutron effective multiplication factor for a PWR spent fuel assembly. The axial background neutron flux is measured in a preliminary performance test. From the results, the spacer grid position is determined to be consistent with the design specifications within a 2.3 % relative error. The induced fission neutron for four of the assemblies is also measured by scanning the neutron source, Cf-252 or the neutron detector. The exponential decay constants have been evaluated by the application of the Poisson regression to the net induced fission neutron counts. The measured keffs determined on the basis of the exponential decay constants of C15 appeared to be 0.541, 0.540, 0.597 and 0.556, respectively, which are comparable with 0.55195±0.00232 of the MCNP calculation