Title: Study of the basic safety characteristic parameters of the MINERVE reactor core configurations

Authors: Hesham Shahbunder; Noura H. Hafez; S.U. El-Kameesy; Esmat H. Amin

Addresses: Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt ' Faculty of Engineering, Egyptian Russian University, Cairo, Egypt ' Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt ' Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract: The study of the neutronic safety parameters in reactors is very important since it provides a guide for future study in reactor design. Also, it is considered as the basic step for reactor waste transmutation. In the present work, some of the basic neutronic parameters that characterised the MINERVE reactor in the different core configurations R1-UO2, R2-UO2, and R1-MOX, are calculated. The calculations were performed using Monte Carlo N Transport code MCNPX with the recent nuclear data library ENDF/B-VII.1. These parameters are the neutron spectrum, and the total, fast and thermal flux for both radial and axial distributions for the three core configurations. The calculation model is validated by the previous REBUS results. The effect of the neutron flux distribution on the power peaking is discussed.

Keywords: MINERVE reactor; neutron spectrum; neutron flux distribution; nuclear energy; nuclear power plants; NPP; nuclear reactors; nuclear safety; reactor core configurations; MCNPX code; thermal flux; modelling; power peaking.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNEST.2015.071628

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, 2015 Vol.9 No.2, pp.186 - 200

Received: 03 Feb 2015
Accepted: 22 Jul 2015

Published online: 04 Sep 2015 *

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