Development of a point-kinetic verification scheme for nuclear reactor applications

Journal Article · Thu Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Journal of Computational Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCP.2017.03.020· OSTI ID:22622298

Dykin, V.; Jareteg, K.

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

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
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