Comparison for some measured and calculated nuclear Parameters for Ghana Research Reactor - 1 core

Abstract

A 30 kW tank-in pool reactor, Ghana Research Reactor-1 (GHARR-1), installed at the National Nuclear Research Institute, Kwabenya, went critical on December 17, 1994. GHARR-1 is an inherently safe reactor employing Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) as fuel, light water as moderator and beryllium as reflector. Reactor physics calculations of GHARR-1 core have been performed to determine its different design parameters. The lattice code Winfrith Improved Multigroup Scheme (WIMS) was used to generate group constants for four energy groups and the diffusion code CITATION was used for a three-dimensional core calculations in order to compute neutron fluxes associated with various regions of the core. The computed thermal neutron flux levels in the radial and axial direct-ions for different zones of the reactor compared favourably with measured values obtained from the zero power critical experiments. The trends of fast, slowing down, epithermal and thermal fluxes were also predicted.


Journal of Applied Science and Technology (JAST) , Vol. 5, Nos. 1 & 2, 2000, pp. 25 - 31