Annular core experiments in HTTR's start-up core physics tests

HTTRの臨界試験における環状炉心試験

藤本 望; 山下 清信*; 野尻 直喜 ; 竹内 光男; 藤崎 伸吾; 中野 正明*

Fujimoto, Nozomu; Yamashita, Kiyonobu*; Nojiri, Naoki; Takeuchi, Mitsuo; Fujisaki, Shingo; Nakano, Masaaki*

HTTRの臨界試験において、解析コードの検証を目的として環状炉心の試験が行われた。この試験では、初臨界炉心,臨界制御棒位置,中性子束分布,過剰反応度等の測定が行われた。これらのデータを被覆粒子の燃料コンパクト中での配置を考慮できるモンテカルロコードMVPで評価した。その結果、環状炉心における反応度に対する被覆粒子燃料の非均質効果は、中実炉心での効果より小さいことが明らかになった。実効増倍率の解析値は測定値と1%k以下の誤差で一致した。中性子束分布の解析値は測定値とよく一致した。過剰反応度評価においては、制御棒の干渉効果を排除するための修正法を用いた。修正した過剰反応度と解析値は 1%k/k以下の差で一致した。

Annular cores were formed in startup-core-physics tests of the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) to obtain experimental data for verification of calculation codes. The first criticality, control rod positions at critical conditions, neutron flux distribution, excess reactivity etc. were measured as representative data. These data were evaluated with Monte Carlo code MVP that can consider the heterogeneity of coated fuel particles (CFP) distributed randomly in fuel compacts directly. It was made clear that the heterogeneity effect of CFP on reactivity for annular cores is smaller than that for fully-loaded cores. Measured and calculated effective multiplication factors (k) were agreed with differences less than 1%k. Measured neutron flux distributions agreed with calculated results. The revising method was applied for evaluation of excess reactivity to exclude negative shadowing effect of control rods. The revised and calculated excess reactivity agreed with differences less than 1%k/k.