Neutronic designs and analyses of a new core-moderator assembly and neutron beam ports for the penn state breazeale reactor

A new core-moderator assembly and five new neutron beam ports are modeled and designed for the Penn State Breazeale Reactor (PSBR). The PSBR is an open pool, light water cooled, and moderated 1-MW research reactor with seven neutron beam ports. The existing core-moderator assembly design does not allow simultaneous utilization of all the available beam ports; only two beam ports, namely #4 and #7, are currently in use for research and education in the facility. Moreover, the prompt gamma-rays produced at the back side of the heavy water moderator tank shine into neutron beam tube #4. Subsequently that is hampering the quality of the experimental data at the existing beam port facilities. The proposed design eliminates all the limitations of the existing design and provides multiple high-intensity and clean neutron beams to a new and expanded beam hall utilizing various instruments and techniques. The new design features a crescent-shaped moderator tank, which couples the reactor core to four thermal ports and one cold neutron beam port with three curved guide tubes for various cold neutron beam techniques. The modeling of the new PSBR design was achieved with highly detailed neutronics simulations using several stochastic simulation tools developed for the PSBR. The simulation results revealed the optimal design parameters and neutronics performance of the new beam ports, such that the thermal neutron beam intensity was significantly increased and the total prompt gamma dose was drastically decreased in the new beam port facilities.