Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1993

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Nuclear Engineering

Major Professor

H. L. Dodds

Committee Members

L. F. Miller, A. E. Ruggles

Abstract

This work is a study of a hypothetical nuclear criticality accident in a waste supercompactor. The material being compressed in the compactor is a homogenous mixture of Be and Pu49, The point kinetics equations with simple thermal-hydraulic feedback is used to model the transient behavior of the system. A lumped parameter energy balance is performed to determine the bulk temperature of the system. A computer code has been developed to solve the set of equations. The computer code calculates the fission power history, fission yield, bulk temperature of the system, and several other thermal-hydraulic parameters of interest. The computer code is used to calculate several experiments. The results of these calculations are in good agreement with the experimental results and the results of other computer codes. An example of this agreement is a calculation of the DOSAR reactor for a 4.3 cent step change in reactivity. The computer code calculates the maximum power pulse as 1.6x1013 fissions per second which agrees quite well with the DOSAR experimental result of 1.8x1013 fissions per second. Calculations have been performed for the waste super-compactor for final external reactivities of $20, 10, 5, 1, and 0.5. The maximum power pulse for the various scenarios varies from 1.04x1017 to 4.85x1020 fissions per second. The fission yield varies from 8.21x1017 to 7.73x1018 fissions. The bulk temperature of the system varies from 412 to > 912 K.

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