Passive Safety Feature of KIPT Neutron Source Facility

Journal Article · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:23042691

Zhong, Zhaopeng; Gohar, Yousry ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL. 60439 (United States)

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) of the United States and Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) of Ukraine have cooperated on the development, design, and construction of a neutron source facility. The facility was constructed at Kharkov, Ukraine and its commissioning process is underway. The facility has an electron accelerator driven subcritical assembly. The electron beam power is 100 kW using 100 MeV electrons. Tungsten or natural uranium is the target material for generating neutrons driving the subcritical assembly. The subcritical assembly is composed of WWR-M2 Russian fuel assemblies with U-235 enrichment of 19.7 wt%, surrounded by beryllium reflector assembles and graphite blocks. The water coolant operates at room temperature during normal operation, when the facility is operating at full power using 100-KW electron beam power. The passive safety features of the facility are discussed in in this study. Monte Carlo computer code MCNPX was utilized in the analyses with ENDF/BVII.0 nuclear data libraries. Negative reactivity temperature feedback was consistently observed, which is important for the facility safety performance. Due to the design of WWR-M2 fuel assemblies, slight temperature increase and the corresponding density decrease in the water coolant would cause relatively large reactivity drop, which offset the reactivity gain by mistakenly loading an additional fuel assembly. The increase of fuel temperature also causes sufficiently large reactivity decrease. This enhances the facility safety performance because fuel temperature increase provides prompt negative reactivity feedback. (authors)

• OSTI ID: 23042691
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 115; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
BERYLLIUM
ELECTRON BEAMS
ELECTRONS
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
KIPT NEUTRON SOURCE FACILITY
MEV RANGE
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NATURAL URANIUM
NEUTRONS
NUCLEAR DATA COLLECTIONS
REACTIVITY COEFFICIENTS
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
SUBCRITICAL ASSEMBLIES
URANIUM 235