Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mphil-in-nuclear-energy-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/paper-ne1/4/b/i/solution

Let be the constant precursor production rate per volume. Here is the precursor yield per nuclear fission, and and are number densities. At a steady state,
For fixed homogeneous coefficients and spatial shape, the reactivity contribution of an added absorption coefficient is . Thus the model gives
When capture removal dominates xenon radioactive decay, , and hence
The limit is independent of the xenon neutron absorption cross section: at high neutron flux, nearly every xenon atom supplied by the precursor ultimately consumes a neutron. The assumptions include constant pre-shutdown neutron flux, sufficient time for precursor and xenon equilibrium, the supplied single-precursor model with no direct xenon fission source, and fixed parameters for translating absorption into reactor reactivity.

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