Reduction of activity in a research reactor waste using neutronic design

The management of waste produced in the reactor is an essential aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle. In this research, it has been tried to reduce the amount of reactor waste at the end of the cycle without substantial changes in the fuel dimension and the core structure of the research reactor. Minimized the heat generation. The MCNPX2.6 code is used to calculate the fuel consumption and neutronic parameters of the reactor core. The results show that without any significant change in the structure of the reference core, the amount of waste decreases only by increasing the fuel enrichment and reducing the reactor power. In this study, two core models are proposed and investigated. The waste activity at the end of the cycle in the converted reactor cores reaches 15% -19% of its original value in the reference core. Moreover, fuel burn- up has increased up to 32% -40% relative to the reference core.