Evaluation of the use of color-set geometry during lattice physics constants generation for boiling water reactor simulation
- AREVA, AREVA NP Inc., Richland, WA 99354 (United States)
- Department of Nuclear and Mechanical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
Current methods for BWR nuclear design and analysis consist of using lattice physics neutron transport methods to generate the two-group homogenized cross-sections that are then used in a nodal diffusion theory code. The lattice transport solutions are performed for a single assembly with reflective boundary conditions, which is a practical approximation. A method is developed to account for assembly exposure distributions (environment) in the core within the lattice transport calculations with the use of color-sets (2x2) geometry. The loading pattern is examined and an appropriate number of characteristic color-set cells are selected for analysis. Treatment of the co-resident exposed fuel within this method is also presented. The calculation process was followed for a recent BWR cycle design with comparisons being performed on both a lattice and core-wide basis to evaluate the proposed method. The lattice based comparisons show noticeable differences in the pin power distribution predictions, which require further investigation to see how this translates into core performance calculations. The core-wide comparisons show minor differences and are generally in a good agreement, which is expected with this small perturbation. A slight improvement was noticed in the reduction of the power distribution uncertainty. However, given the additional amount of work and computer run time increase, further evaluation, especially of core pin power predictions, is needed to consider this method for production level design and safety analysis calculations. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22212814
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: M and C 2013: 2013 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering, Sun Valley, ID (United States), 5-9 May 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 7 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering - M and C 2013| 3016 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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