THERMAL POWER CALIBRATION OF TRIGA 2000 RESEARCH REACTOR

Abstract

The thermal power calibration of the TRIGA 2000 research reactor is very important to get the accuracy of power and neutron flux. The TRIGA 2000 research reactor in Bandung has undergone fuel reshuffling and therefore requires thermal power calibration. Thermal power calibration has been conducted by calorimetric method; it is performed at 100 kW – 500 kW using 7 thermocouples connected to a data logger. The computed average power was lower than the indicated power shown in the control room for all power generation. When observing channel 1 for each power generation, a higher precision can be seen at 500 kW since the calibration process was carried out sequentially from 100 kW to 500 kW while the stirring process was continually operated. The treatment led to a uniform temperature distribution over time. Each measurement channel exhibited inconsistent deviations, indicating that certain power levels had better accuracy in some channels compared to others. This demonstrates that the accuracy of power calculations is not determined by the measurement position.