Design of Piercing Beam Port of Itu Triga Mark II Research Reactor for Bnct Application

Abstract

Main aim of this study is to design the piercing beam port (PBP) of İstanbul Technical University TRIGA Mark II Research and Training Reactor (ITU-TRR) for the purpose of nuclear applications. The nuclear application interested in this study is the Boron-Neutron Capture Therapy method (BNCT). As a neutron source, fission neutrons supplied by the ITU-TRR core are used. Availability of the incident beam of the PBP for the BNCT application is investigated. Beam shaping based on the requirements of the application is carried out by employing the Genetic Algorithm (GA) method coupled with a Monte Carlo-based reactor physics code. For this purpose, first, a three-dimensional full-core model of the considered reactor was carried out using MCNP5/6 as a reactor physics code. The reactor model was validated with the design values given in the Safety Analysis Report (SAR). Following the validation, the reactor was re-modeled using the latest reactor operation sequence taken from the reactor logbook.