Abstract
Aqueous Homogeneous Solution Reactor concept has been proposed for producing medical isotopes(Medical Isotope Production Reactor-MIPR). However, there are several difficulties in transient calculation of aqueous homogeneous solution reactors. First, there are no assemblies in the core which is different from the traditional reactor core. Second, the operation of aqueous solution reactor at a power of 200kW will generate radiolytic-gas bubbles. The void volume created by these bubbles in the solution core will introduce a strong negative reactivity feedback. Third, the complex structure of the coolant pipes immersed in fuel solution requires unstructured neutron diffusion calculation methods. Therefore, analytic basis functions expansion nodal method for arbitrary triangular-z node is established to solve the complex structure geometry neutron diffusion equation. Based on this, a software named TABFEN-K has been developed to solve the three-dimensional space-time neutron kinetic equations. Then，TABFEN-K code is used for typical accident analysis of a solution reactor. A simplified geometry model, bubbles generation model , thermal conduction model and and cross section feedback model are given in this paper. A software called TABFEN-MIPR is developed and used for the simulations of the control rod ejection and drop. The same characteristics in the transient process with the results from literatures are obtained.
Highlights
Other than the irradiation of uranium targets in heterogeneous reactors, aqueous homogeneous solution reactors is an alternative way to produce medical isotopes (Ball, 1997)
The TABFEN-K code is used for typical accident analysis of a solution reactor
The structure and material of the aqueous homogeneous solution reactor are given in Figures 1, 2 gives the radial mesh of the core used in the calculation, respectively
Summary
Other than the irradiation of uranium targets in heterogeneous reactors, aqueous homogeneous solution reactors is an alternative way to produce medical isotopes (Ball, 1997). Analytic basis functions expansion nodal method for arbitrary triangular-z node is established to solve the complex structure geometry neutron diffusion equation. The distribution of detailed neutron flux within each node is expanded into the sum of a set of analytic basis functions by accurately formulating the multi-group matrix form neutron diffusion equation and appropriately choosing the expansion order and characteristically directions. A new sweeping scheme is designed for the triangular-z node to solve the nodal diffusion equation iteratively This analytic basis function expansion nodal method is extended for solving the space-time neutron kinetic equations. Similar to the steady-state, nodal averaged volume flux and surface partial current moments are calculated by introducing the coordinate conversion scheme.
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