Application of reactivity method to MTR fuel burn-up measurement

• Autores: Zúñiga, Agustín, Cuya, Teobaldo, Matjaž, Ravnik
• Formato: artículo
• Fecha de Publicación: 2002
• Institución: Instituto Peruano de Energía Nuclear
• Repositorio: IPEN-Institucional
• Lenguaje: inglés
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.ipen.gob.pe:20.500.13054/188
• Enlace del recurso: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13054/188
• Nivel de acceso: acceso abierto
• Materia: Reactividad; Elementos combustibles; Grado de quemado; Reactor RP-10; Reactor MTR

Fuel element burn-up has been measured for the first time by reactivity method in a MTR reactor. The measurement was performed in RP-10 reactor of Peruvian Institute for Nuclear Energy (IPEN) in Lima. It is a pool type 10MW material testing reactor using standard 20% enriched uranium plate type fuel elements. A fresh element and an element with well defined burn-up were selected as reference elements. Several elements in the core were selected for burn-up measurement. Each of them was replaced in its original position by both reference elements. Change in reactivity was measured using control rod calibration curve. The burn-up reactivity worth of fuel elements was plotted as a function of their calculated burn-up. Corrected burn-up values of the measured fuel elements were calculated using the fitting function at experimental reactivity for all elements. Good agreement between measured and calculated burn-up values was observed indicating that the reactivity method can be successfully applied also to MTR fuel element burn-up determination.