Parametric study of reactivity changes in Egypt second research reactor (ETRR-2)

The reactivity parameter is one of the important neutronic parameters that must be studied for the reactor safety evaluation as well as for the reactor operation follow-up. Reactivity is an integral parameter normally used to describe the overall state of a nuclear reactor. A numerical study of the important parameters that change the reactivity in ETRR-2 is presented in this paper. The study is carried out through the comparison between the measured and the calculated values of these parameters for several different assembled cores. The values include the reactivity calculational error of criticality determination, control plate worths, reactivity excesses, shutdown margins and the calculated Xenon equilibrium levels at different reactor powers. The calculated values of all the above parameters are very close to the measured ones. This means that the adopted calculational models and their associated neutronic libraries are capable of representing ETRR-2 core.