Three Heavy Reflector Experiments in the IPEN/MB-01 Reactor: Stainless Steel, Carbon Steel, and Nickel

Abstract

The heavy reflector experiments performed in the IPEN/MB-01 research reactor facility comprise a set of critical configurations employing the standard 28×26-fuel-rod configuration. The heavy reflector, either Stainless Steel, Carbon Steel or Nickel plates, was placed at the west face of this reactor. 32 plates around 3.0 mm thick were used in all the experiments. The aim was to provide high quality experimental data for the interpretation and validation of the SS-304 heavy reflector calculation methods. The experiments of Carbon Steel, which is composed mainly of iron, and Nickel were performed to provide a consistent and an interpretative check to the SS-304 reflector measurements. The experimental data comprise a set of critical control bank positions, temperatures and reactivities as a function of the number of the plates. The competition between the effect of thermal neutron capture in the heavy reflector and the effect of fast neutrons back scattering to the core is highlighted by varying the reflector thickness. For the Carbon Steel case the reactivity gain when all the 32 plates are inserted is the smallest one, thus demonstrating that Carbon Steel or essentially iron does not have the same reflector properties as the Stainless Steel or Nickel plates do. Nickel has the highest reactivity gain, thus demonstrating that this material is better reflector than Iron and Stainless Steel. The theoretical analysis was performed by MCNP-5 with the nuclear data library ENDF/B-VII.0. It was shown that this library has a very good performance up to thirteen plates and overestimates the reactivity for higher number of plates independently of the type of the reflector.