DRAGON Modelling of the SLOWPOKE-2 Reactor at Ecole Polytechnique

Abstract

Predicting the behaviour of the SLOWPOKE2 reactor at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal poses a major challenge from the point of view of transport calculations since it has properties which forbid the use such simple schemes as those considered for power reactor analyzes. For example, the use of a totally reflected 2-D cell containing a single fuel pin with its associated coolant is not good enough to generate the fuel averaged properties required in a full core diffusion calculation. Here we present the DRAGON cell model which was used to generate the few group macroscopic cross sections needed for full core diffusion calculations. We also discuss how DRAGON can be used to evaluate and explain the effect on reactivity of temperature and local voiding perturbations.