Thermal Constraints on Using Ceramic Fuel (UO2) Instead of Metallic Fuel (Uranium metal) In MTR – Type Nuclear Reactor

For nuclear safety ,a thermal study to the proposed reactor (Similar to NRX reactor, changing the metallic to ceramic fuel and the light water to heavy water as coolant) has been performed, using the international codes HEATING – 5 and SQUID . For different operational power levels (40, 30, 25, 20, 15 and 10 MW), the average and maximum fuel temperatures are calculated. The reactor should be operated at 15MW and any power level less than 15MW, In order to avoid the molten effects of the fuel.