The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 23, 2016
Filed:
Jun. 03, 2013
Westinghouse Electric Company Llc, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Ho Q. Lam, Verona, PA (US);
Vefa N. Kucukboyaci, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Yung-An Chao, Shanghai, CN;
Robert W. Flammang, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
William H. Slagle, Frederick, MD (US);
Patrick J. Sebastiani, Monroeville, PA (US);
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for measuring and monitoring axial flux to determine subcriticality in a spent fuel pool of a nuclear power plant. In certain embodiments of this invention, one or more neutron detectors are operable to generate signals resulting from neutron interactions in the spent fuel pool, a counting device counts the signals which are generated by the one or more neutron detectors, a connecting means electrically connects the one or more neutron detectors to the counting device, a signal analyzer is used to determine reactivity of the fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool based on the counted signals, a power supply provides power for the neutron detectors, the counting device and the system analyzer, and a software code containing an axial flux curve index is used to correlate the counted signals to determine the subcriticality of the spent fuel pool.