Nuclear Design Methodology of Fission Moly Target for Research Reactor

A nuclear design of fission moly production targets for a research reactor, HANARO was peformed. It was found that the use of MCNP-4A, ORIGEN-2 code was reliable for the analysis of production characteristics of $^{99}$ Mo in a target fuel at an irradiation holes. A parametric study was done for the optimization of target location, target dimension, target shape and fuel materials. It was shown that a fuel thickness was the most sensitive parameters and electro-deposited target gave the highest 99Mo yield ratio. A pellet target with vibro-compaction powder, however, showed the largest production capacity and better engineering feasibility even with less yield ratio. Ten kinds of optimized target design for both LEU and HEU satisfied all the given design constraints. The most favorable design was the HEU ring-shaped electro-deposited target, considered the safety limit, production yield, chemical process easiness, yield ratio, and amount of radioactive waste.