Verification of geometrical perturbation calculations for the pulsed fast reactor IBR-2

The IBR-2 is a small fast reactor with plutonium oxide fuel and liquid sodium cooling. A ro-tating two-reflector system periodically closes and opens a non-reflected side of the reactor and leads it through the prompt super critical state in a time of about 500 microseconds. During this time a burst of fast neutrons is generated in the core of the reactor, which spreads out through moderators. Channels lead the neutrons to measurement instruments.
Certain reactivity parameters of the rotating reflector system determine essential parameters of the reactor as a pulsed neutron source. Just now a new reflector system, the so-called PO-3, has been installed. For this reason the important reactivity effects of the reflector were newly calcu-lated with help of the MCNP-4C2 code. The contribution presents numerical results, which were obtained in different ways and compares results of calculations and measurements. The special in-terest consisted in studying the effect of neglecting the fission source effect, as assumed by the PERT option of the code, on the calculation results. The comparison of numerical with measure-ment results showed agreements in some cases but also considerable discrepancies, which could not yet be explained. Therefore, no final conclusion on the applicability of the PERT method for the calculation of total and displacement reactivity effects of the rotating reflector system of the IBR-2 reactor could be drawn.