Instrumentation Set Points

Abstract

The mission of the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) at the Device Assembly Facility (DAF) is to conduct experiments on critical assemblies with fissile material at or near criticality in order to explore reactivity phenomena and to operate the assemblies in the region from subcritical through delayed critical to beyond prompt critical. The critical assemblies contain fissile and other materials that are used to carry out research and development activities in support of criticality safety, accident simulation and analysis, weapons and reactor design, and other programmatic needs. There are four critical assemblies at the NCERC; Comet, Flat-Top, Godiva, and Planet. There are two Safety Significant systems, the SCRAM Safety System (SSS) and the Nuclear Instrumentation (NI) system, that are integral programmatic systems for safe operations at the NCERC. System Design Descriptions (SDDs) have been developed for the four critical assembly machines as well as for the SSS (this SDD also includes information pertaining to the Operational Interlock System (OIS)) and NI system. This document provides all of the NCERC critical assembly machines’ set points and basis for these set points, as the DOE standard suggests.