186 Int. J. Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2015 Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Study of the basic safety characteristic parameters of the MINERVE reactor core configurations Hesham Shahbunder Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt Email: ihesham@msn.com Noura H. Hafez* Faculty of Engineering, Egyptian Russian University, Cairo, Egypt Email: noura.physics@hotmail.com *Corresponding author S.U. El-Kameesy Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt Email: samirkhamisy@yahoo.com Esmat H. Amin Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority, Cairo, Egypt Email: esmatamin1@yahoo.com Abstract: The study of the neutronic safety parameters in reactors is very important since it provides a guide for future study in reactor design. Also, it is considered as the basic step for reactor waste transmutation. In the present work, some of the basic neutronic parameters that characterised the MINERVE reactor in the different core configurations R1-UO 2 , R2-UO 2 , and R1-MOX, are calculated. The calculations were performed using Monte Carlo N Transport code MCNPX with the recent nuclear data library ENDF/B-VII.1. These parameters are the neutron spectrum, and the total, fast and thermal flux for both radial and axial distributions for the three core configurations. The calculation model is validated by the previous REBUS results. The effect of the neutron flux distribution on the power peaking is discussed. Keywords: MINERVE reactor; neutron spectrum; flux distribution; nuclear energy. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Shahbunder, H., Hafez, N.H., El-Kameesy, S.U. and Amin, E.H. (2015) ‘Study of the basic safety characteristic parameters of the MINERVE reactor core configurations’, Int. J. Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp.186–200.