Partin-Vaisband receives grant from Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Partin-Vaisband receives grant from Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Associate Professor Inna Partin-Vaisband received a grant from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for her role in measuring neutron activity in nuclear reactors, a critical component of safety monitoring. Partin-Vaisband will design resilient electronics that can operate even in a nuclear reactor’s harsh, radiation-filled environment.
The goal of the project is to enable the accurate measurement of neutron flux for nuclear reactor power monitoring at modular and advanced nuclear reactors.
Neutrons are subatomic particles found in the nucleus of an atom. They contain no electric charge but are critical to the stability of atoms. The flux, or rate of flow of these neutrons, refers to the intensity of neutron radiation and is critical to understanding the reactor’s reaction rate and power output, as it influences the fission process and behavior of nuclear materials in the reactor’s core.
Partin-Vaisband will work with a University of Illinois Urbana Champaign team to develop Boron-coated devices, or straws, that detect neutrons by exploiting the strong interaction between neutrons and Boron.
“When a neutron interacts with Boron, it produces charged particles, which we intend to detect to infer the neutron flux,” Partin-Vaisband said.
These devices will feature adaptive readout to various reactor operating stages and an unprecedented spatial resolution of the position of neutron interaction for instantaneous characterization of the vertical distribution of the neutron flux.
Partin-Vaisband will implement a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a type of integrated circuit used widely in applications that require flexibility.
“A main challenge is the very broad range of expected flux values, which requires the readout electronics to adapt dynamically — using partly linear and partly logarithmic scaling,” Partin-Vasiband said. “To address this challenge, we will be implementing a self-adaptable FPGA device, which will adjust the scale in real time based on its input.”
Partin-Vaisband said the use of FPGAs raises another challenge, which is the sensitivity of the static random-access memory (SRAM). SRAM is volatile memory, and data is lost when power is removed or lost. Radiation can flip bits in SRAM cells, jeopardizing the overall operation of the detector. In response, Partin-Vaisband will explore advanced approaches to design a radiation-hardened FPGA-based detector.
The award period for the grant, Radiation-hardened Digital Boron-coated Straw Neutron Detectors, is October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2027. The total award is $500,000, and UIC’s share is $145,000.