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Reactor Experiments   --   Reactor Lab #1
Approach to Critical Experiment

The purpose of this experiment is to use the concept of the subcritical multiplication factor to predict the critical height of a control blade within the UMass-Lowell Research Reactor (UMLRR). Performing an "Approach to Critical" experiment by plotting the traditional 1/M curves is an excellent means for illustrating the behavior of subcritical systems, for highlighting the importance of the subcritical multiplication factor, and for showing how knowledge of the detector count rate in different configurations can give an experimental methodology for predicting when a system will reach the critical state. This page contains links to all the files directly associated with these subjects and with Reactor Lab #1.

Upon completion of this experiment, the student should have a better understanding of subcritical systems and how to use the 1/M method to predict when criticality will occur in the system.

NOTE: Knowledge of the blade worth curves is essential for day-to-day operation of the UMLRR and it is also needed for the pre-lab and post-lab analyses associated with most of the experiments peformed over the course of the semester. Thus, this page also contains a link to the available 2018 data (and earlier) for the integral blade worth curves for the UMLRR, as well as a Matlab GUI (bw_display) that allows easy visualization and application of these data.

Resource List:

Last updated by Prof. John R. White (March 2020)

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