Analysis of control rod effect on the safety operation parameter of the RSG-GAS Core

Abstract

The operation cycle of the RSG-GAS reactor is regulated by control rod positions from the lowest to uppest positions. It is of necessary to know the effect of this control rods positions to the safety operation parameter a long the cycle. The objective of this research is to confince that the changes of safety operation parameter still meet the its safety limits. The neutronics and thermalhydraulics parameter to be observed are power peaking factor, kinetic and steady state parameters. Calculations are conducted by a combination code of WIMSD/5 and MTRDYN. The main results of maximum axial power peaking factor is 1.84 at control rod position of 20 cm. The maximum temperature of cooling, cladding and fuel are consecutively 67.18 °C, 122.26 °C, and 123.24 °C. These results lay far under safety limits of maximum temperature of coolant and fuel of 100 °C dan 200 °C at steady state operation of the RSG-GAS reactor which means that the reactor operation is safe as long as the cicle operation.

Effect of New Cross Section Data File on the Criticality of the RSG-GAS Research Reactor

“…In order to assure that the reactor is safely operated, at the beginning of the operation cycle (BOC), some important nuclear parameters are measured such as excess reactivity and control rod worth [3][4][5][6]. Some of the safety parameters were also evaluated by appropriate analytical tools [7][8][9]. The RSG-GAS reactor produces an average thermal neutron flux of 2×10 14 neutron cm -2 s -1 at a nominal power of 30 MW [10].…”