Computational design and characterization of a subcritical reactor assembly with TRIGA fuel

A mini subcritical nuclear reactor was designed using Monte Carlo methods. The reactor has light water as moderator, natural uranium as fuel, and a 239 PuBe neutron source. In the design uranium fuel was modeled in an arrangement of concentric rings: 8.5, 14.5, 20.5 26.5, 32.5 cm-inner radius, 3 cm-thick, and 36 cm-high. Different models were made from a single ring of natural uranium to five rings. For each case, the neutron spectra, the neutron fluence distribution, the effective multiplication factor, the amplification factor, and the reactor power were estimated. The ambient dose equivalent rate outside the mini reactor was also estimated. The maximum value for the k eff (0.78) was obtained when five rings of fuel were used; this value is close to 0.86 which belongs to a Nuclear Chicago subcritical reactor which requires almost twice the amount of uranium than the mini subcritical reactor.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

Mini Subcritical Nuclear Reactor

Vega‐Carrillo¹,

Singh²,

Escobedo-Galván³

et al. 2019

JNP

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“…In this point the main contribution are thermal neutrons where the amount is increased as the fuel rings are added. The reduction of fast neutrons and the increase of thermal neutrons as the distance is increased are similar to measurements carried out in a Nuclear Chicago model 9000 subcritical reactor [22], and a subcritical reactor with TRIGA reactor fuel [23]. In figures 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 the distribution of neutron fluence per history are shown for mini subcritical reactor with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 fuel rings, the shape of neutron fluence distribution is alike to the distribution reported for the Jordan subcritical reactor [24].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

Mini Subcritical Nuclear Reactor

Vega‐Carrillo

Singh

Escobedo-Galván³

et al. 2019

J. Nucl. Phy. Mat. Sci. Rad. A.

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A mini subcritical nuclear reactor was designed using Monte Carlo methods. The reactor has light water as moderator, natural uranium as fuel, and a 239PuBe neutron source. In the design uranium fuel was modeled in an arrangement of concentric rings: 8.5, 14.5, 20.5 26.5, 32.5 cm-inner radius, 3 cm-thick, and 36 cm-high. Different models were made from a single ring of natural uranium to five rings. For each case, the neutron spectra, the neutron fluence distribution, the effective multiplication factor, the amplification factor, and the reactor power were estimated. The ambient dose equivalent rate outside the mini reactor was also estimated. The maximum value for the keff (0.78) was obtained when five rings of fuel were used; this value is close to 0.86 which belongs to a Nuclear Chicago subcritical reactor which requires almost twice the amount of uranium than the mini subcritical reactor.

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“…If the number of Uranium atoms is equal to one, then it is the density of the Uranium (NU) atom and if the number of oxygen atoms is equal to two, then Ni the density of the oxygen 7and equation (8) below,…”

Section: Simulation Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reactor criticality is a variable that express the state of the reactor to get optimum operation [6,7]. Hence, it is important to simulate the reactor state at different variation of kernel radii and UO2 enrichment before conduct the operation in order to produce the expected criticality value [8,9]. This simulation aims to examine the effect of the combination of U-235 fuel enrichment and fuel fingers (Kernell) to determine the criticality (Keff).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation Of Fuel Ball Dimensional Size And Uranium Enhancement For High Temperature Reactor

et al. 2020

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The purpose of this study was to examine the combined effect of enriching U-235 fuel and fuel fingers (Kernell) to determine its criticality (Keff). In this study, simulation of HTR (High Temperature Reactor) type reactors using MCNPX (Monte Carlo N eXtended Particles). The fuel used is UO2 which has a density of 10.4 gr / cm3, with impurity using 4 ppm Boron atom with Atomic B-10 fraction of 80.1% and B-11 of 19.9%. The variation of enrichment used is 7% to 15% and the fuel radius (Kernell) ranges from 160 µm to 340 µm. From the results, it was obtained that the optimum Keff occurs at 7% enrichment and the radius of the fuel of 310 µm was 1.01236.

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Computational design and characterization of a subcritical reactor assembly with TRIGA fuel

Cited by 12 publications

References 25 publications

Mini Subcritical Nuclear Reactor

Mini Subcritical Nuclear Reactor

Mini Subcritical Nuclear Reactor

Simulation Of Fuel Ball Dimensional Size And Uranium Enhancement For High Temperature Reactor

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