Titanium and Aluminum Rod-Replacement Experiments in Fully-Reflected 6.90% Enriched UO{sub 2} Fuel Rod Lattices
- Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185 (United States)
The Seven Percent Critical Experiment (7uPCX) was designed to provide benchmark criticality and reactor physics data for water-moderated pin-fueled nuclear reactor cores. The enrichment of the fuel was chosen to explore the enrichment range above the current 5% ceiling for US commercial pressurized water reactors. The experiment was part of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Project 01-124 titled 'Reactor Physics and Criticality Benchmark Evaluations for Advanced Nuclear Fuel'. Three sets of benchmark experiments have been completed using the 7uPCX and documented as LEUCOMP-THERM-080, LEU-COMP-THERM-078, and LEUCOMP-THERM-096. The experiments for LEUCOMP-THERM-080 and LEU-COMP-THERM-078 were done in fully-reflected arrays with the number of fuel rods in the array as the approach parameter. The experiments for LEU-COMP-THERM-096 are similar to those in LEUCOMP-THERM-080 except that the arrays are partially-reflected - the arrays were larger than would be possible with full reflection and the approach-to-critical experiments were done with the depth of the water in the critical assembly as the approach parameter. The experiments described here are similar to the fully-reflected experiments in LEU-COMP-THERM-080 with some of the central fuel rods in the array replaced by titanium rods, aluminum rods, and/or water. The experiments are designed to provide criticality safety benchmarks with significant reactivity from titanium and equivalent configurations with aluminum experiment rods. These experiments are documented as LEU-COMP-THERM-097. (authors)
- OSTI ID:
- 23042693
- 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
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