J NUCL. & Rel. TECH., Volume 5, No.

2, December 2008, 65-71

Criticality Calculation in TRIGA Mark II PUSPATI

Reactor Using Monte Carlo Code

1
Rafhayudi Jamro, 2Danieal Hergenreder, 2Carlos Lecot, 3Redzuwan Yahaya, 1Abdul
Aziz Mohamed, 4Eid Abdel_Munem, 1Megat Harun Al-Rashid, 1Julia Abd Karim,
3
Ikki Kurniawan, 1Hafizal Yazid, 1Azraf Azman and 1Shukri Mohd.

Malaysian Nuclear Agency, 43000 Kajang Malaysia

1

2
INVAP S.E, Bariloche, Argentina
3
Nuclear Science Program, Universiti Kebangsaaan Malaysia, 43000 Kajang, Malaysia
4
School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, 11800, Penang, Malaysia.

Abstract

A Monte Carlo simulation of the Malaysian nuclear reactor has been performed using MCNP Version
5 code. The purpose of the work is the determination of the multiplication factor (keff) for TRIGA
Mark II research reactor in Malaysia based on Monte Carlo method. This work has been performed
to calculate the value of keff for two cases, which are the control rod either fully withdrawn or fully
inserted to construct a complete model of the TRIGA Mark II PUSPATI Reactor (RTP). The RTP
core was modeled as close as possible to the real core and the results of keff from MCNP5 were
obtained. When the control-fuel rods were fully inserted, the keff value indicates the RTP reactor was
in the subcritical condition with a value of 0.98370 ± 0.00054. When the control-fuel rods were fully
withdrawn the value of keff value indicates the RTP reactor is in the supercritical condition, that is
1.10773 ± 0.00083.

Abstrak

Simulasi MCNP terhadap reaktor nuklear di Malaysia telah dilakukan dengan menggunakan kod
MCNP Versi 5. Objektif utama kajian ini adalah untuk menentukan faktor pendaraban berkesan (keff)
bagi reaktor penyelidikan TRIGA Mark II di Malaysia dengan kaedah Monte Carlo. Kajian ini telah
dilakukan untuk mengira nilai keff dalam dua keadaan dimana rod kawalan dikeluarkan sepenuhnya
dan dimasukkan sepenuhnya bagi membina model reaktor TRIGA Mark II PUSPATI (RTP). Teras
RTP telah dimodelkan berdasarkan kepada teras reaktor yang sebenar dan keputusan keff dari
MCNP5 telah diperolehi. Apabila rod kawalan dimasukkan sepenuhnya, maka didapati bahawa nilai
keff menunjukkan reaktor RTP berada dalam keadaan subkritikal dengan nilai 0.98370 ± 0.00054
dan apabila rod kawalan dikeluarkan sepenuhnya, maka nilai keff menunjukkan reaktor RTP berada
dalam keadaan superkritikal dengan nilai 1.10773 ± 0.00083.

Keywords: Monte Carlo, multiplication factor, TRIGA Mark II PUSPATI (RTP) reactor.

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J NUCL. & Rel. TECH., Volume 5, No.2, December 2008.

Introduction

The PUSPATI TRIGA MARK II reactor (RTP) was designed to effectively accommodate the various
fields of basic nuclear research and education. RTP is a pool type reactor designed to allow greater
flexibility in experimental work in the core region. It uses demineralized light water as moderator
to dissipate heat, high purity graphite as reflector and Uranium-235 as nuclear fuel. With a thermal
power capacity of 1 Megawatt, RTP has an average neutron flux of 2.797 x 1012 cm-2/s-1 at the edge
of the reactor core (Yazid et. al., 2007). It uses standard TRIGA fuel elements that are composed of
Zirconium Hydride alloy embedded with 8.5 w%, 12w% and 20w% enriched uranium and cladded
with stainless steel (SAR, 1983). These fuels are arranged in six circular rings in the reactor core;
B, C, D, E, F and G having 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 rods respectively (Figure 1), with equal spacing
between each adjacent locations (Karim and Bokhari, 2006). Using a mixture of americium and
beryllium as the neutron source and four control rods to control fission reaction inside the reactor
core, the RTP produced free neutrons with energy ranging up to 10 MeV. The neutrons produced
in the reactor core incorporate facilities for advanced neutron and gamma radiation studies as well
as for samples activation, isotope production and student training. This paper provides necessary
information using Monte Carlo simulation to demonstrate that reactor is capable of fulfill its safety
function. The simulation was carried out using Monte Carlo Version 5 (MCNP5) computer code
to estimate and calculate the reactor criticality inside the Malaysian RTP core. This paper aimed to
determine the effective multiplication factor for the RTP which is important in the reactor in reactor
control especially for the core of the Malaysian TRIGA Mark II reactor, which has not been published
before using this MCNP5 computer code.

Fig. 1: The core s 12th configuration

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 J NUCL. & Rel. TECH., Volume 5, No.2, December 2008.

The MCNP5 Modeling of the RTP

The MCNP5 code was employed to construct a complete model of RTP based on the 12th core
configuration which is consisting of 114 fuel rods accurately positioned, 10 of flux holes with the
appropriate location, 6 dummy fuel rods, 3 control rods of fuel-follower type are used i.e. regulating,
(R), Shim (C), and safety (S), 1 air-follower control rod (transient rod), reactor tank, graphite reflector
and center timber. All fuel elements were represented as cylinder of appropriate materials and
dimension, positioned at the exact locations (see Fig 2 and 3). The core center was taken as the origin
(0, 0, 0) in the x-y plane. In the 12th configuration, about 88 fuel elements of 8.5wt%, 16 fuel elements
of 12wt% and 10 fuel elements of 20wt% were used.

Fig 2: Axial Model for RTP configuration in MCNP5

Fig 3: Radial Model for the RTP configuration in MCNP5

The continuous energy cross section data was used. Neutron and photon cross-sections were taken
from ENDF/B-V# and ENDF/B-VI# from the MCNP5 data library.

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J NUCL. & Rel. TECH., Volume 5, No.2, December 2008.

Criticality Calculation

Nuclear criticality, the ability to sustain a chain reaction by fission neutron is characterized by keff,
the eigenvalue for the neutron transport equation. In the reactor theory, keff is also well known as
multiplication factor which is defined as the ratio of the number of fission or fission neutrons in the
generation divided by the number of fissions or fission neutrons in the preceding generation (Lamarsh
and Baratta, 2001). In the equation form,

k = number of fissions in one generation (1)

number of fissions in preceding generation

For the critical system, keff=1 and the chain reaction will just sustain itself which is meant the chain
reaction is normal. Meanwhile for the subcritical system, keff <1, the chain reaction will not sustain
itself. For the supercritical system, keff >1, the number of fissions in the chain reaction will increase
with time (��������������������������������������
MCNP-A Manual, 2003)������������������
. The formula of keff comes directly from the time-integrated
Boltzmann transport equation without external source. keff can be written as follow:

(2)

This equation is derived from integro-different neutron transport equation with energy (E), flux (Φ),
direction of neutron (Ω), reactor volume (V), neutron velocity (v), time (t) and neutron current flux
(J), material or atom density (ρa) by meant of σc, σf, σm are microscopic cross section for capture
(n, pn) fission and multiplicity (n, xn) respectively. Based on the equation (2) it is not easy to get
criticality factor value because of too many parameters, complexity of geometry and uncertainty
of neutron particles. As such, the Monte Carlo approach was adopted to overcome through these
problems approximation (Kurniawan and Jamro, 2008).

In addition to the geometry description and materials card, an important requirement to run a criticality
problem is a KCODE card, and the initial spatial distribution of fission points using KSRC card,
SDEF card or SCCTP file. In this work the KCODE card was chosen to run a criticality problem.
The effective multiplication factor is computed in MNCP5 based on the calculation of three different
estimators; a collision-based keff, an absorption-based keff and a track length based keff (Khamis and
Sulieman, 2006). The input file for the MCNP5 included 5010 cycles made of 10 inactive cycles and
5000 active cycles with 10000 histories per cycle with the initial guess for keff=1. The ENDF-VI (66c,
60c) cross section data set was used to calculate all the isotopes (����������������������
MCNP-A Manual, 2003)��.

Result

From the MCNP5 output, the physical parameters as keff, flux, dose and others were obtained. Table
1 shows some neutronic data with relative error for two cases which are the control rods either fully
withdrawn or fully inserted in the RTP core as computed by MCNP5 and SRAC codes for comparison.
Fig. 4 and 5 showed the simulated model of the reactor TRIGA Mark II control rods either fully
withdrawn or fully inserted in the RTP core.

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 J NUCL. & Rel. TECH., Volume 5, No.2, December 2008.

Fig. 4: Control rods were fully inserted modeled by MCNP5 code

Fig. 5: Control rods were fully withdrawn modeled by MCNP5 code

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J NUCL. & Rel. TECH., Volume 5, No.2, December 2008.

Table 1: Comparison of the MCNP5 code calculation and SCRAC code (Karim and Bokhari, 2006)
calculation of multiplication for both cases, which are the control rod either fully withdrawn or fully
inserted.

Table 1: Comparison of the MCNP5 calculation and SCRAC calculation for both cases.

Effective multiplication factor 1.10773 ±�

�� Effective multiplication factor 1.0876
(Control rods fully withdrawn) 0.00083 (Control rods fully withdrawn)
by MCNP5 code by SRAC code
Effective multiplication factor 0.98370 ± � Effective multiplication factor 0.8435
(Control rods fully inserted) by 0.00054 (Control rods fully inserted) by
MCNP5 code SRAC code

From the simulation result, the calculation of keff has been successfully carried out in which when the
control-fuel rods were fully inserted, the keff value indicates the RTP reactor was in the subcritical
condition with a value of 0.98370 ± 0.00054. When the control-fuel rods were fully withdrawn the
keff value indicates the RTP reactor is in the supercritical condition, that is 1.10773 ± 0.00083. The
Monte Carlo calculation shows a result of 1.85% higher than the SRAC calculation. As expected, both
results differ slightly as the core configuration for both are not identical. In this work, Monte Carlo
calculation are based on the 12th core configurations while for SRAC, the calculation are based on the
11th core configuration. Changes in core configurations were found to affect the result, which indicate
the importance of proper selection of core configuration in the nuclear reactor. A slight increment in
keff was found as compared to SRAC is due to the fuel rod. In this work, the calculation are based on
the fresh fuel rods meanwhile for SRAC, the calculation considers the burn up factor.

Conclusion

The advantage of using MCNP5 code compared to the deterministic method is that MCNP5 is a
powerful code for the criticality calculation which is not easy to achieve by deterministic calculation.
Deterministic technique provides an exact solution to an approximation of the problem while Monte
Carlo techniques provide an approximate solution to an exact representation of the problem. MCNP5
code has been successfully utilized for the modeling of the Malaysian TRIGA Mark II with full details
for all components to calculate the keff value.

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References

Karim, J.A. and Bokhari, A., (2006), Initial Core Calculation of 1MW Reactor TRIGA Mark II
PUSPATI (RTP) Using SRAC Code System. FNCA Workshop on Utilization of Research Reactors,
Pasig City, Manila, Philippines, 28 August – 1 Sept 2006

Khamis, I. and Sulieman, I., (2006), Monte Carlo Simulation of a Conceptual thermal Column in
the Syrian Miniature Neutron Source Reactor Using MCNP4C. Annals of Nuclear Energy 33(2006)
622-626.

Kurniawan, E. and Jamro, R., (2008), Chernobyl Reactor Disaster Analysis and Study Of New Core
Reactor Power Reactor Design By MCNP Code. Scientific Conference 3, PPI-UKM, Bangi Selangor,
19th January 2008.

Lamarsh, J.R. and Baratta, A.J., (2001), Introduction To Nuclear Engineering, 3rd Edition. Prentice
���������
Hall, Inc.

MCNP-A General Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code, Version 5, (2003), Los
��������������������
Alamos National
Laboratory.

Safety Assessment Report (SAR) For PUSPATI TRIGA Mark II Reactor Facility, (1983), Pusat
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Yazid, H., Ahmad, S., Muhamad, A., Mohamed, A. A., Jamro, R. and Husain, H., (2007), Radiation
Shielding Material Characterization by Non-Destructive Neutron Radiography Technique. National
Metallurgical Conference 2007, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

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