Reheating experiment in the 35-ton pile

When the 35-ton pile was started up it was necessary for us, in order to study certain effects (xenon for example), to know the anti reactivity value of the rods as a function of their dimensions. We have made use of the possibility, in the reheating experiment, of raising the temperature of the graphite-uranium block by simple heating, in order to determine the anti reactivity curves of the rods, and from that the overall temperature coefficient. For the latter we have considered two solutions: first, one in which the average temperature of the pile is defined as our arithmetical mean of the different values given by the 28 thermocouples distributed throughout the pile; a second in which the temperature in likened to a poisoning and is balanced by the square of the flux. The way in which the measurements have been made is indicated, and the different instruments used are described. The method of reheating does not permit the separation of the temperature coefficients of uranium and of graphite. The precision obtained is only moderate, and suffers from the changes of various parameters necessary to other manipulations carried out simultaneously (life time modulators for example), and finally it is a function of the comparatively restricted time allowed. It is evident of course that more careful stabilisation at the different plateaux chosen would have necessitated long periods of reheating. (author)