Uncertainty analysis on reactivity and discharged inventory for a pressurized water reactor fuel assembly due to {sup 235,238}U nuclear data uncertainties

Conference · Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012

OSTI ID:22107771

Da Cruz, D. F.; Rochman, D.; Koning, A. J. ^[1]

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1. Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group NRG, Westerduinweg 3, 1755 ZG Petten (Netherlands)

This paper discusses the uncertainty analysis on reactivity and inventory for a typical PWR fuel element as a result of uncertainties in {sup 235,238}U nuclear data. A typical Westinghouse 3-loop fuel assembly fuelled with UO{sub 2} fuel with 4.8% enrichment has been selected. The Total Monte-Carlo method has been applied using the deterministic transport code DRAGON. This code allows the generation of the few-groups nuclear data libraries by directly using data contained in the nuclear data evaluation files. The nuclear data used in this study is from the JEFF3.1 evaluation, and the nuclear data files for {sup 238}U and {sup 235}U (randomized for the generation of the various DRAGON libraries) are taken from the nuclear data library TENDL. The total uncertainty (obtained by randomizing all {sup 238}U and {sup 235}U nuclear data in the ENDF files) on the reactor parameters has been split into different components (different nuclear reaction channels). Results show that the TMC method in combination with a deterministic transport code constitutes a powerful tool for performing uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of reactor physics parameters. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22107771
• Resource Relation: Conference: ICAPP '12: 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, Chicago, IL (United States), 24-28 Jun 2012; Other Information: Country of input: France; 13 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants - ICAPP '12| 2799 p.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
97 MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND COMPUTING
DATA COVARIANCES
EVALUATION
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
FUEL ELEMENTS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NUCLEAR DATA COLLECTIONS
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
PWR TYPE REACTORS
REACTIVITY
REACTOR CHANNELS
REACTOR CORES
REACTOR PHYSICS
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
TRANSPORT THEORY
URANIUM 235
URANIUM 238
URANIUM DIOXIDE