Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the 2004 International RERTR Meeting
SAFETY ANALYSIS OF THE WWR-M REACTOR IN UKRAINE TO ALLOW
OPERATION USING LEU FUEL
Y. P. Mahlers and A. G. Dyakov Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research Kiev 03680,
Ukraine
ABSTRACT
The WWR-M research reactor in Ukraine is jointly
studied by the Argonne National Laboratory and the Kiev
Institute for Nuclear Research for conversion to LEU
(19.75%) fuel. Candidate LEU replacement fuel assemblies
are LEU WWR-M2 (3 tubes, UO2-Al fuel meat with 2.5 gU/cm3
and 41.7 g 235U), which have been tested successfully in
the WWR-M reactor in Gatchina by irradiation to over 75%
burnup. To qualify this LEU fuel for conversion of the
WWR-M reactor in Ukraine, the safety analysis is
performed. Neutronic and thermal-hydraulic
characteristics of LEU fuel equilibrium core and
transition mixed core containing both LEU and HEU fuel
are calculated. The following accidents are analyzed:
spontaneous withdrawal of a control rod bank and
incidental falling of a fuel assembly in a cell of the
core. The models applied for calculations are validated
against measured data, which include critical experiment
results for fresh fuel assemblies and measured neutronic
distributions in a real WWR-M reactor core.
Contact: Dr. Jordi Roglans-Ribas
Technical Director, RERTR Department
Nuclear Engineering Division – 362
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439
Fax: +1 630-252-5161
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The 2015 International RERTR Meeting (RERTR-2015) took place in Seoul, Korea on Oct. 11-14, 2015.
For more information visit RERTR-2015.
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