Design, Development and Installation of a Wide Range Fission Chamber System a Summary

The failure rate of B-10 lined proportional counters at the Maine Yankee PWR was excessively high and an intensive search was begun in 1976 for a solution to this problem. This paper addresses the salient aspects of the discovery through to the resolution of the failures. It encompasses the data and viewpoints of the three co-operating organizations, namely the plant, the system vendor and the detector supplier.