Criticality safety analysis of spent fuel pool for TRIGA Puspati Reactor using MCNP5

International Nuclear Science, Technology and Engineering Conference 2018

Bahri, Nurlaila Syamsul^1 ; Zainal, Jasman^1 ; Hamzah, Khaidzir^1 ; Mohammad Saleh, Muneer Aziz^1 ; Rabir, Mohamad Hairie^2

Department of Nuclear Engineering, School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi, Johor

81310, Malaysia^1

Nuclear and Reactor Physics Section, Reactor Technology Centre, Technical Support Division, Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Selangor, Kajang

43000, Malaysia^2

关键词: Criticality condition;    Criticality safety;    Fissile materials;    Neutron absorbers;    Safety criticality;    Spent nuclear fuels;    Storage facilities;    Storage rack design;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/555/1/012001/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/555/1/012001

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Spent fuel pool uses water to temporarily cool spent nuclear fuels before final disposal. The Malaysian Nuclear Agency is recently working on its spent fuel pool facility to store irradiated TRIGA fuel rods. These irradiated fuels still contain significant amount of fissile material which are capable to induce criticality in the fuel storage facility. This study is therefore performed to investigate the safety criticality analysis for the proposed fuel storage rack design of 5x5 arrays. MCNP5 code was used to model the 5x5 array of fuel storage rack in order to determine the optimal fuel pitch distance. The analysis was based on the standard UZrH1.6 TRIGA fuel cladded with stainless steel used in PUSPATI TRIGA Reactor, which is 19.9% enriched 235U and 20% weight of Uranium. By varying the pitch distance between 4 cm to 14 cm with no neutron absorber included, the optimum fuel rack design was determined where sub-criticality condition can be maintained.