Noise-based core monitoring and diagnostics: overview of the cortex project

This paper gives an overview of the CORTEX project, which is a Research and Innovation Actionfunded by the European Union in the Euratom 2016-2017 work program, under the Horizon 2020framework. CORTEX, which stands for CORe monitoring Techniques and EXperimental validationand demonstration, aims at developing an innovative core monitoring technique that allowsdetecting anomalies in nuclear reactors, such as excessive vibrations of core internals, flowblockage, coolant inlet perturbations, etc. The technique is based on primarily using the inherentfluctuations in neutron flux recorded by in-core and ex-core instrumentation (often referred to asneutron noise), from which the anomalies will be differentiated depending on their type, locationand characteristics. In addition to be non-intrusive and not requiring any external perturbation of thesystem, the method allows the detection of operational problems at a very early stage. Properactions could thus be taken by utilities before such problems have any adverse effect on plant safetyand reliability.