A Preliminary Simulation of Trade Dynamics

The TIESTE-MINOSSE code, developed at the ENEA to preliminarily investigate core dynamics relevant to metal cooled fast reactor and ADS, has been implemented to analyse transients in the RC1 1 MW swimming pool TRIGA reactor existing at the Casaccia Centre. In the first part of the work, the TIESTE-MINOSSE improvement and validation on TRIGA dynamics is described. In particular, reactivity insertion measurements made during the first tests of the RC1 TRIGA are analysed and the resulting fuel feedback features are compared with statically measured temperature and power coefficients, obtained by measuring both the fuel temperature and the reactivity of a calibrated control rod at different power levels. The comparison shows a significant agreement between the mentioned analysis of TRIGA dynamics and the more recent power coefficient static measurements. In the second part of the work, some transients in sub-critical core configurations relevant to TRADE are preliminary analysed.