New monitoring procedure of axial xenon oscillation in large pressurized water reactors

Abstract Xenon oscillation is caused by imbalance of xenon distribution in nuclear reactors. Procedures have been developed in the past to dampen these oscillations. One of the procedures is known as quite simple and effective, which uses several constants obtained from reactor modeling codes in the analysis of xenon oscillations (not from actual data of the plant). This causes uncertainties in the solutions obtained and the need for an improved approach becomes apparent. This paper discusses a new methodology that allows the utilization of actual reactor data in the procedure’s analysis to dampen xenon oscillations. Moreover, it has been shown that only two constants are needed to fully express the xenon oscillation behavior.