Advancing nuclear science education through IRL Integration: A case experiment on criticality mass determination at the Kartini research reactor

Abstract

Research reactors serve critical roles across multiple domains—from physics to medicine—while distinctly not being used for electrical power generation. The Kartini Research Reactor located in Indonesia exemplifies the integration of research reactors in education and scientific research, particularly highlighting its educational applications through the Internet Reactor Laboratory (IRL). Established in 1978 and operational since 1979, the Training Research and Isotope Production by General Atomic (TRIGA) Mark II reactor is instrumental in advancing nuclear science with facilities like the Lazy Suzan/Rotate Rack and Beam Port. The IRL significantly enhances its educational process, enabling remote access to reactor physics experiments, thus facilitating global university participation in nuclear engineering education. This capability allows for the real-time visualization of reactor operations and detailed presentation of operational data and experiment results, enriching the learning experience. This paper demonstrates the Kartini Reactor's educational utility through a case study investigating reactor criticality and determining the critical fuel mass under safe operational parameters. Employing telecommunication hardware and software, the study achieved reactor criticality by inserting 5 fuel elements, totaling 2524.57 g. The critical mass determination was further refined by plotting the inverse of counts against the total mass of U-235. This approach utilized both polynomial and linear trend lines to analyze the data. While the polynomial analysis provided upper and lower thresholds for critical mass, the linear regression offered a precise critical mass value of 2428.62 g, showcasing a deviation of only 4% from the experimental findings.