Preliminary design concept of a subcritical reactor using available resources

During the Fall 1993 semester, a project was initiated within the Nuclear Engineering Department of the University of Tennessee with the objective of developing a design for a subcritical reactor with maximized multiplication factor using materials currently available. Such a device, if constructed, would serve as a teaching tool for the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Design work was conducted as a large number of computer calculations, with trial pile configurations based on fundamental nuclear engineering principles, in an effort to maximize multiplication factor through fuel element geometry, moderator type, fissile/moderator ratio, and reflector character. The principal objective of the design group for the early phase of this project was to present several possible ''baseline'' reactor designs and identify directions for improvements. For the sake of calculational ease, the cores analyzes to date have been of nearly cubic shape. The SCALE CSAS25 software which runs KENO.Va, a Monte Carlo code, was used for all neutronics calculations. The baseline reactors resulting from work to date are cuboidal in shape and graphite reflected. Two types of fuel element geometries are proposed, a typical triangular pitch rod lattice and an arrangement of discrete fuel slugs placed in a lattice corresponding to body centered cubic packing. The latter arrangement provides slightly higher multiplication factors than the former. Calculations were performed for both graphite and heavy water moderation with heavy water moderation producing considerably higher multiplication factors, as expected. In general, the maximum keff for the reactors are in the range of 0.5 to 0.9, well subcritical, except in the cases of the extreme possible values of fuel assay where critical configurations are possible. In these cases, designs with reduced fuel loading are recommended to assure a subcritical multiplication factor