METHOD FOR DIAGNOSING IONIZATION CHAMBER OF NUCLEAR REACTOR SAFETY SYSTEM Russian patent published in 2000 - IPC

FIELD: nuclear power engineering. SUBSTANCE: electric circuit equivalent is used to find current-voltage characteristic of ionization chamber the latter being presented as nonlinear variable-dependent two-terminal network. Novelty is that single voltage surge is set in chamber circuit to obtain its current- voltage characteristic. Varying states of circuit are recorded during transients and their records are introduced in calculation program to recover current-voltage characteristic of chamber at fixed power and neutron flux level in reactor. Technical condition of chamber is determined basing on current-voltage curve obtained using static criteria check results and information concerning chamber serviceability. Since measurement time depending on transient time is very short, power drift does not occur which provides for high-precision diagnosing of ionization chamber under real operating conditions of nuclear reactor. EFFECT: improved accuracy in finding current-voltage characteristic; improved precision of diagnosing chamber serviceability. 2 dwg