Slovenia: TRIGA Mark II. Profile 26

TRIGA Mark II reactor is part of Jožef Stefan Institute. Reactor is placed 10 km away from centre of Ljubljana in Podgorica and is the only Slovenian research reactor. TRIGA is a pool type reactor. Reactor tank is 6 m high and has a diameter of 2 m. Reactor core is 5 m under water level. Its maximum thermal power in steady state mode is 250 kW. Reactor is also capable of pulse operation. Maximum power of pulse is approximately 1 MW. Reactor reached its first criticality in year 1966 and is today almost 50 years old. In 1991 reactor was almost completely reconstructed. Since then the core is loaded only by fuel elements that contain 20% enriched uranium. Uranium is mixed by ZrH (standard TRIGA fuel) which makes reactor inherently safe. To control the power, four control rods are used. As an absorber is used boron carbide (B4C). Three rods have fuel followers, transient rod (used for pulse operation) has air follower. Reactor operates on average 800 working hours per year and produces on average 125 MW(th) of thermal energy. Currently there are three licensed operators and one operator, trainee. The total number of staff is five. Nowadays, reactor is mainly used for irradiating different samples (neutron activation analysis and study of radiation hardness), neutron radiography and training of future nuclear power plant (NPP) staff, Slovenian students and IAEA courses participants. Link to the IAEA research reactor database is cited.