World Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology
Volume 4, Issue 1 (January 2014)
ISSN Print: 2161-6795 ISSN Online: 2161-6809
Google-based Impact Factor: 0.38 Citations h5-index & Ranking
Study of Criticality Safety and Neutronic Performance for a 348-Fuel-Pin Ghana Research Reactor-1 LEU Core Using MCNP Code ()
Affiliation(s)
ABSTRACT
The National Nuclear Research Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission is undertaking steps to convert the Ghana Research Reactor-1 from HEU Core to LEU. The proposed LEU core consists of 12.5% enriched UO2 fuel elements clad in Zircaloy-4 alloy. This is done in collaboration with Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactor. The versatile MCNP code was used to analyse the neutronics parameters given in the SAR of HEU core, thereby characterizing the core. Subsequently, the LEU core was indentified with necessary changes to the HEU MCNP model. It was ascertained that the reactivity for the LEU core with the same number of fuel pins as the HEU was inadequate, hence the fuel pins were increased from 344 to 348. The neutron flux at the irradiation sites was found to be below the nominal value at full power for the LEU and hence the nominal power was increased to 34 kW for a nominal flux value of 1 × 1012 n/cm2.s. The parameters investigated for the HEU and LEU are shown in this paper.
KEYWORDS
Share and Cite:
Cited by
Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.