Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
1998 International RERTR Meeting

A NEUTRONIC FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR LEU CONVERSION
OF THE BUDAPEST RESEARCH REACTOR

R. B. Pond, N. A. Hanan and J. E. Matos
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, IL, USA

and

Csaba Maraczy
KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute
Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT

A neutronic feasibility study for conversion of the Budapest Research Reactor (BRR) from HEU to LEU fuel was performed at Argonne National Laboratory in cooperation with the KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute in Hungary. Comparisons were made of the reactor performance with the current HEU (36%) fuel and with a proposed LEU (19.75%) fuel. Cycle lengths, thermal neutron fluxes, and rod worths were calculated in equilibrium-type cores for each type of fuel. Relative to the HEU fuel, the LEU fuel has up to a 50% longer fuel cycle length, but a 7-10% smaller thermal neutron flux in the experiment locations. The rod worths are smaller with the LEU fuel, but are still large enough to easily satisfy the BRR shutdown margin criteria. Irradiation testing of four VVR-M2 LEU fuel assemblies that are nearly the same as the proposed BRR LEU fuel assemblies is currently in progress at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute.