Development of a point-kinetic verification scheme for nuclear reactor applications
In this paper, a new method that can be used for checking the proper implementation of time- or frequency-dependent neutron transport models and for verifying their ability to recover some basic reactor physics properties is proposed. This method makes use of the application of a stationary perturbation to the system at a given frequency and extraction of the point-kinetic component of the system response. Even for strongly heterogeneous systems for which an analytical solution does not exist, the point-kinetic component follows, as a function of frequency, a simple analytical form. The comparison between the extracted point-kinetic component and its expected analytical form provides an opportunity to verify and validate neutron transport solvers. The proposed method is tested on two diffusion-based codes, one working in the time domain and the other working in the frequency domain. As long as the applied perturbation has a non-zero reactivity effect, it is demonstrated that the method can be successfully applied to verify and validate time- or frequency-dependent neutron transport solvers. Although the method is demonstrated in the present paper in a diffusion theory framework, higher order neutron transport methods could be verified based on the same principles.
- OSTI ID:
- 22622298
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 339; Other Information: Copyright (c) 2017 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9991
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DIFFUSION
DISTURBANCES
EXTRACTION
FLUCTUATIONS
FREQUENCY DEPENDENCE
KINETICS
NEUTRON TRANSPORT
NEUTRONS
NOISE
PERTURBATION THEORY
REACTIVITY
REACTOR PHYSICS
REACTORS
TIME DEPENDENCE
TRANSPORT THEORY
VALIDATION
VERIFICATION