Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the 2000 International RERTR Meeting
CHARACTERISTIC TESTS OF SILICIDE FUEL CORE IN JRR-3M
Masahiro YAGI, Shigeru
WADA,
Yoji MURAYAMA and
Mitsuo TAKEUCHI
JRR-3 Operation
Division, Department of Research Reactor
Japan Atomic Energy
Research Institute
Tokai-mura Naka-gun Ibaraki-ken
319-1195, Japan
ABSTRACT
In
JRR-3M, the core conversion works from the aluminide fuel to the silicide fuel
had been conducted since September of 1999. In the core and the heavy water
tank, four BF3 counters and two CICs were installed so as to measure
a small amount of neutron, and antimony was installed in the beryllium
reflector as the neutron source. JRR-3M achieved the first criticality using
the silicide fuels on September 17th, 1999. The minimum critical core was
achieved with 15 standard fuel elements. The minimum critical mass was measured
to 8.467 kg 235U. This result of measurement agreed approximately
with the result of calculation with the MVP code. After that, JRR-3M
constituted the full core. As the result, the excess reactivity in JRR-3M core
was measured to 14.1 %Dk/k. Beside, the neutron flux, the control rod
reactivity worth, the heavy water dump effecting, the moderator temperature
effecting and so on had been measured as the characteristic test with the core
conversion. Several reactor physics parameters had been obtained by these
tests.