Report on INL Activities for Uncertainty Reduction Analysis of FY12
The work scope of this project related to the Work Packages of “Uncertainty Reduction Analyses” with the goal of reducing nuclear data uncertainties is to produce a set of improved nuclear data to be used both for a wide range of validated advanced fast reactor design calculations, and for providing guidelines for further improvements of the ENDF/B files (i.e. ENDF/B-VII, and future releases). Recent extensive sensitivity/uncertainty studies, performed within an international OECD-NEA initiative, have quantified for the first time the impact of current nuclear data uncertainties on design parameters of the major FCR&D and GEN-IV systems, and in particular on Na-cooled fast reactors with different fuels (oxide or metal), fuel composition (e.g. different Pu/TRU ratios) and different conversion ratios. These studies have pointed out that present uncertainties on the nuclear data should be significantly reduced, in order to get full benefit from the advanced modeling and simulation initiatives. Nuclear data plays a fundamental role in performance calculations of advanced reactor concepts. Uncertainties in the nuclear data propagate into uncertainties in calculated integral quantities, driving margins and costs in advanced system design, operation and safeguards. This package contributes to the resolution of technical, cost, safety, security and proliferation concerns in a multi-pronged, systematic, science-based R&D approach. The Nuclear Data effort identifies and develops small scale, phenomenon-specific experiments informed by theory and engineering to reduce the number of large, expensive integral experiments. The Nuclear Data activities are leveraged by effective collaborations between experiment and theory, between DOE programs and offices, at national laboratories and universities, both domestic and international. The primary objective is to develop reactor core sensitivity and uncertainty analyses that identify the improvement needs of key nuclear data which would facilitate fast spectrum system optimization and assure safety performance. The inclusion of fast spectrum integral experiment data is key to minimizing the impact of nuclear data uncertainties on reactor core performance calculations, thus providing the best nuclear data needs assessment. This report presents the status of activities performed at INL under the ARC Work Package previously mentioned. As major achievement this year a comprehensive adjustment, including 87 experiments, was carried out. The results of this adjustment provide useful insights and helpful feedback to both nuclear data evaluation and measurer communities. In the following, we will document first the theory that underlines the adjustment methodology, and then we will illustrate the sensitivity coefficient computation and the nuclear data and experiment selection. Subsequently, the adjustment results will be shown, and, finally, conclusions, including future work, will be provided.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1057686
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-12-27128
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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