Effect of changing the neutron moderator in a thermal subcritical nuclear reactor

Subcritical thermal nuclear reactor is the combination of nuclear fuel, moderator and external neutron source. Nevertheless, the amount of neutrons increases through nuclear fissions in the 235U in the fuel, the absorption and leakage of neutrons maintain the subcriticality condition. There are several subcritical reactors with different features and purposes. The open tank subcritical reactor Nuclear Chicago model 9000 is the heterogeneous combination of natural uranium, in hexagonal lattice, and light water, acting as moderator and reflector of neutrons, that uses a239PuBe neutron source. Worldwide there are several of these reactors mainly used in education, where due to the contact with water the Al tubes have corrosion. A possible solution is to use polyethylene as moderator. Aiming to evaluate the effect of changing the moderator, in this work Monte Carlo methods were used to model the reactor with polyethylene and water as moderators increasing the fuel load. For each model were estimated the keff and the μ parameters, and for Case 10a model was calculated the power, the Ambient dose equivalent and the fluence, of neutrons and γ-rays at five sites outside the reactor. •Subcritical thermal nuclear reactor features with two moderators were estimated using Monte Carlo methods.•Moderators were water and polyethylene.•The keff and the μ parameters as the fuel was loaded were calculated.•For case 10a reactor, were estimated the keff, μ and the reactor power.•At five sites outside the reactor, were calculated the fluence and the H*(10) due to neutrons a γ-rays.