Neutronic and thermal–hydraulic analysis of new irradiation channels inside the Moroccan TRIGA Mark II research reactor core

Abstract

This study was conducted to improve the capacity of radioisotope production in the Moroccan TRIGA Mark II research reactor, which is considered as one of the most important applications of research reactors. The aim of this study is to enhance the utilization of TRIGA core in the field of neutron activation and ensure an economic use of the fuel. The main idea was to create an additional irradiation channel (IC) inside the core. For this purpose, three new core configurations are proposed, which differ according to the IC position in the core.Thermal neutron flux distribution and other neutronic safety parameters such as power peaking factors, excess reactivity, and control rods worth reactivity were calculated using the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport (MCNP) code and neutron cross-section library based on ENDF/B-VII evaluation.The calculated thermal flux in the central thimble (CT) and in the added IC for the reconfigured core is compared with the thermal flux in the CT of the existing core, which is taken as a reference. The results show that all the obtained fluxes in CTs are very close to the reference value, while a remarkable difference is observed between the fluxes in the new ICs and reference. This difference depends on the position of IC in the reactor core.To demonstrate that the Moroccan TRIGA reactor could safely operate at 2MW, with new configurations based on new ICs, different safety-related thermal–hydraulic parameters were investigated. The PARET model was used in this study to verify whether the safety margins are met despite the new modifications of the core.The results show that it is possible to introduce new ICs safely in the reactor core, because the obtained values of the parameters are largely far from compromising the safety of the reactor.