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Christmas Light
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
No electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged by the chimney with care
With the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Matjaž Ravnik, Bogdan Glumac
Nuclear Technology | Volume 114 | Number 3 | June 1996 | Pages 365-372
Technical Paper | Nuclear Criticality Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35240
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A criticality safety analysis of a pool-type storage for spent TRIGA Mark II reactor fuel is presented. Two independent computer codes are applied: the MCNP Monte Carlo code and the WIMS lattice cell code. Two types of fuel elements are considered: standard fuel elements with 12 wt% uranium concentration and FLIP fuel elements. A parametric study of spent-fuel storage lattice pitch, fuel element burnup, and water density is presented. Normal conditions and postulated accident conditions are analyzed. A strong dependence of the multiplication factor on the distance between the fuel elements and on the effective water density is observed. A multiplication factor <1 may be expected for an infinite array of fuel rods at center-to-center distances >6.5 cm, regardless of the fuel element type and burnup. At shorter distances, the subcriticality can be ensured only by adding absorbers to the array of fuel rods even if the fuel rods were burned to ∼20% burnup. The results of both codes agree well for normal conditions. The results show that WIMS may be used as a complement to the Monte Carlo code in some parts of the criticality analysis.