Authors:

Ritveek Govardhanam

Date Created:

Not specified

Course Title:

Professor:

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About Paper:

Compact, lightweight nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) systems have recently regained interest due to their potential to reduce travel time for deep space missions, particularly crewed missions to Mars. The latest iteration of the Miniature Reactor Engine (MITEE), MITEE-C, is a promising candidate for such applications. The updated core geometry aims to match the reactor criticality trends observed in validated Monte Carlo N-Particle simulation benchmarks, specifically the effective multiplication factor (Keff) as a function of pitch-to-diameter ratio. In the MITEE system, Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) microcontrollers used to rotate control drums during reactor startup and shutdown are vulnerable to radiation-induced failure in the high-flux environment near the core. To assess and mitigate this risk, a neutron transport simulation was conducted using the community-developed Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport code, OpenMC, to determine the reactivity worth associated with the number of control drum failures and to evaluate the spatial distribution of neutron flux in the vicinity of the MITEE-C reactor. The results provide Keff at various selected failure modes and will provide voxel-level tallies of radiation exposure, informing the probability of radiation effects and the safest optimal positioning of microcontrollers in NTP systems. Keywords: Nuclear Thermal Propulsion; Microcontrollers; Radiation Hardening; Monte Carlo Simulations; Reactor Physics

Source:

Purdue University / 2025

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Ritveek Govardhanam