Chham E, El Bardouni T, Benaalilou K, Boukhal H, El Bakkari B, Boulaich Y, El Younoussi C, Nacir B
ERSN, Faculty of Sciences, University Abdelmalek Essaadi, Tetouan 93030, Morocco.
ERSN, Faculty of Sciences, University Abdelmalek Essaadi, Tetouan 93030, Morocco.
Appl Radiat Isot. 2016 Oct;116:178-84. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2016.08.006. Epub 2016 Aug 12.
This study was conducted to improve the capacity of radioisotope production in the Moroccan TRIGA Mark II research reactor, which is considered as one of the most important applications of research reactors. The aim of this study is to enhance the utilization of TRIGA core in the field of neutron activation and ensure an economic use of the fuel. The main idea was to create an additional irradiation channel (IC) inside the core. For this purpose, three new core configurations are proposed, which differ according to the IC position in the core. Thermal neutron flux distribution and other neutronic safety parameters such as power peaking factors, excess reactivity, and control rods worth reactivity were calculated using the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport (MCNP) code and neutron cross-section library based on ENDF/B-VII evaluation. The calculated thermal flux in the central thimble (CT) and in the added IC for the reconfigured core is compared with the thermal flux in the CT of the existing core, which is taken as a reference. The results show that all the obtained fluxes in CTs are very close to the reference value, while a remarkable difference is observed between the fluxes in the new ICs and reference. This difference depends on the position of IC in the reactor core. To demonstrate that the Moroccan TRIGA reactor could safely operate at 2MW, with new configurations based on new ICs, different safety-related thermal-hydraulic parameters were investigated. The PARET model was used in this study to verify whether the safety margins are met despite the new modifications of the core. The results show that it is possible to introduce new ICs safely in the reactor core, because the obtained values of the parameters are largely far from compromising the safety of the reactor.
本研究旨在提高摩洛哥TRIGA Mark II研究堆的放射性同位素生产能力，该研究堆被视为研究堆最重要的应用之一。本研究的目的是提高TRIGA堆芯在中子活化领域的利用率，并确保燃料的经济使用。主要思路是在堆芯内部创建一个额外的辐照通道（IC）。为此，提出了三种新的堆芯配置，它们根据IC在堆芯中的位置而有所不同。使用基于ENDF/B-VII评估的蒙特卡罗N粒子输运（MCNP）代码和中子截面库计算了热中子通量分布以及其他中子学安全参数，如功率峰值因子、过剩反应性和控制棒价值反应性。将重新配置后的堆芯在中心套管（CT）和新增IC中的计算热通量与现有堆芯CT中的热通量进行比较，现有堆芯的热通量作为参考。结果表明，CT中获得的所有通量都非常接近参考值，而新IC中的通量与参考通量之间存在显著差异。这种差异取决于IC在反应堆堆芯中的位置。为了证明摩洛哥TRIGA反应堆在基于新IC的新配置下能够安全地在2MW功率下运行，研究了不同的与安全相关的热工水力参数。本研究使用PARET模型来验证尽管堆芯有新的修改，但安全裕度是否满足。结果表明，可以在反应堆堆芯中安全地引入新的IC，因为获得的参数值在很大程度上不会危及反应堆的安全。
