Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

SIMULATE-3 pin power reconstruction and comparison to fine-mesh PDQ

Conference · · Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States)
OSTI ID:5719081

For many years, Yankee Atomic Electric Co. has used PDQ-7 fine-mesh diffusion theory and SIMULATE-2 coarse-mesh nodal theory to synthesize three-dimensional power distributions for pressurized water reactor analysis. Now, improvements to the SIMULATE code (SIMULATE-3) and the CASMO code (CASMO-3) allow accurate three-dimensional assembly average and pin power prediction without any use of PDQ-7. Using the SIMULATE-3 intranodal assembly powers and CASMO-3 assembly pin powers, it is possible to reconstruct global assembly pin power distributions. This method is computationally efficient and in some cases more accurate than fine-mesh diffusion theory. In this paper, the authors compare assembly color sets from CASMO-3 transport theory, fine-mesh PDQ-7, and SIMULATE-3 with pin power reconstruction. The assemblies are Westinghouse 17 x 17 standard assemblies with and without burnable poison and in rodded and unrodded situations. It is demonstrated that the CASMO-3/SIMULATE-3 pin power reconstruction methodology can be as accurate and in some cases more accurate than fine-mesh PDQ-7. This methodology is computationally efficient and requires only single-assembly, usually octant, CASMO-3 depletions along with SIMULATE-3 intranodal fluxes to reconstruct the global power distribution.

OSTI ID:
5719081
Report Number(s):
CONF-870601-
Journal Information:
Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States), Journal Name: Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States) Vol. 54; ISSN TANSA
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English