2007 International RERTR Meeting

Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the Meeting

Progress Made on the University of Missouri Research Reactor HEU to LEU Fuel Conversion Feasibility Study

J. Charles McKibben, Dr. Kiratadas Kutikkad, and Leslie P. Foyto
University of Missouri-Columbia Research Reactor
1513 Research Park Drive, Columbia, Missouri, 65211 - USA

ABSTRACT

The University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR), the highest-powered University-owned research reactor in the U.S. designed to operate at a maximum steady-state power level of 10 MWth, is one of five U.S. high performance research reactors that use HEU fuel that is actively collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy to find a suitable LEU fuel replacement. A conversion feasibility study, using U-10Mo monolithic LEU fuel, is currently being performed at MURR. At first, broad scoping studies where conducted using the transport code MCNP, where the core water-to-metal ratio was varied by altering the thickness or width of the plate cladding, fuel meat, and coolant channel gaps, and varying the number of fuel plates. From these studies, an optimal LEU core design was chosen based on the following calculated parameters: power peaking factors, excess reactivity, and the fast and thermal fluxes available to the experimental facilities. Fuel burnup calculations are now being performed using the 3-D diffusion theory code REBUS. Also included in this paper are some preliminary safety analyses, including parametric studies using the reactivity transient code PARET-ANL and hydraulic calculations using the lightand heavy-water thermal-hydraulic transient code RELAP5/MOD3.3.

 

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