The Current Status of Bandung Triga Mark II Reactor - Indonesia

The Bandung TRIGA Mark II Reactor - Indonesia was started-up on October 10, 1964 and it has been operated at power level of 250 kW. The facility has been, operated for research, production of radioisotopes and training. In 1971, the reactor has been upgraded from 250 kW to 1000 kW. Since that time the facility has been safely operating at various power levels of a maximum 1000 kW until February 1996, even though the reactor tank is kept unchanged. For a highly reliable reactor that can back-up the GA Siwabessy Multipurpose Reactor - Jakarta, Indonesia, in producing sufficient radioisotopes, a higher power reactor is needed. This can be accomplished by increasing the thermal power of current TRIGA Mark II Bandung Reactor to 2000 kW as well as by enhancing the inherent and engineered safety features of the current reactor. The upgrading of reactor power shall ensure the increasing of neutron flux in the beam ports; hence the experiments such as neutron radiography, time of flight spectrometry and other nuclear physic experiments can be conducted better. For that the reactor tank, the number and configuration of fuel element, instrumentation and control rod, primary cooling system, secondary cooling system, water treatment system, shielding, etc. have been changed, and an Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) was added. One additional control rod, core configuration modification and enhancement of reactor shielding, shall increase the safety margin so that the reactor could be operated at a maximum power of 2000 kW. At the middle of May 2000 cold test (non-nuclear commissioning) was done, and continued to hot test (nuclear commissioning). Since June 24, 2000 the TRIGA Mark II Bandung has been operated at 2000 kW.