  CONSORT is the UK's last remaining civilian research reactor, and its present
core is soon to be removed. This study examines the feasibility of re-using the
reactor facility for accelerator-driven systems research by replacing the fuel
and installing a spallation neutron target driven by an external proton
accelerator. MCNP5/MCNPX were used to model alternative, high-density fuels and
their coupling to the neutrons generated by 230 MeV protons from a cyclotron
striking a solid tungsten spallation target side-on to the core. Low-enriched
U3Si2 and U-9Mo were considered as candidates, with only U-9Mo found to be
feasible in the compact core; fuel element size and arrangement were kept the
same as the original core layout to minimise thermal hydraulic and other
changes. Reactor thermal power up to 2.5 kW is predicted for a keff of 0.995,
large enough to carry out reactor kinetic experiments.
