NEUTRONIC DESIGN OF THE RPI REACTOR CORE USING HIGH DENSITY OF U3SI2/AL FUEL

Abstract

The research reactor being designed is called the radioisotope production reactor (RPI). The RPI is used for radioisotope production so that it can keep up with the development in radioisotope needs from both the nuclear and health industries. This reactor can operate with U₃Si₂Al plate-type fuel with a density of 4.80 grams/cc. In this research, neutronic calculations have been carried out for the design of the RPI core using MTR type U₃Si₂/Al fuel with power 2, 5, and 10 MW. This activity begins by generating macroscopic cross-sections for core fuel as a function of temperature and fuel burnup. Cross-section generation was carried out with the WIMSD-5B code using the ENDFB-VIII.0 library. Calculation of the neutronic parameters was carried out using the Batan-FUEL code. Based on the results of calculations for a core configuration of 14 fuel elements and 4 control elements on a 5 x 5 grid, this reactor core meets safety limits by using U₃Si₂/Al fuel. The average thermal neutron flux at the center of the core is 1.09 × 10¹⁴ n/cm²s and the cycle length is 250 days at 5 MW power. The calculation results show that the RPI core meets the neutronic safety criteria on high-density fuel