The design of a pile oscillator for the ford nuclear reactor

A pile oscillator is a device that periodically varies the neutron population in a nuclear reactor. The population change may occur as a localized variation in neutron density, or the density of neutrons throughout the reactor may be caused to vary in a systematic manner. Such a variation may be effected by a periodic oscillation of the multiplication constant, keff, of the reactor. The required changes in keff have been achieved in reactor oscillators by mechanical oscillations of either absorbers or reflectors located in or near the core.