Development and Validation of Scale Nuclear Analysis Methods for High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors

Conference · Mon Oct 18 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Proceedings of HTR 2010

OSTI ID:991688

Gehin, Jess C. ^[1]; Jessee, Matthew ^[2]; Williams, Mark L. ^[2]; Lee, Deokjung ^[2]; Goluoglu, Sedat ^[2]; Ilas, Germina; Ilas, Dan ^[2]; Bowman, Steve A. ^[2]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

In support of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ORNL is updating the nuclear analysis methods and data in the SCALE code system to support modeling of HTGRs. Development activities include methods used for reactor physics, criticality safety, and radiation shielding. This paper focuses on the nuclear methods in support of reactor physics, which primarily include lattice physics for cross-section processing of both prismatic and pebble-bed designs, Monte Carlo depletion methods and efficiency improvements for double heterogeneous fuels, and validation against relevant experiments. These methods enhancements are being validated using available experimental data from the HTTR and HTR-10 startup and initial criticality experiments. Results obtained with three-dimensional Monte Carlo models of the HTTR initial core critical configurations with SCALE6/KENO show excellent agreement between the continuous energy and multigroup methods and the results are consistent with results obtained by others. A three-dimensional multigroup Monte Carlo model for the initial critical core of the HTR-10 has been developed with SCALE6/KENO based on the benchmark specifications included in the IRPhE Handbook. The core eigenvalue obtained with this model is in very good agreement with the corresponding value obtained with a consistent continuous energy MCNP5 core model.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP); US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 991688
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Proceedings of HTR 2010
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
BENCHMARKS
CRITICALITY
EFFICIENCY
EIGENVALUES
Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF)
High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR)
High-Temperature Test Reactor (HTTR)
KENO
Lattice Physics Methods
Light Water Reactor (LWR) Designs
Monte Carlo Depletion Methods
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
ORNL
PHYSICS
PROCESSING
RADIATIONS
REACTOR PHYSICS
REACTOR TECHNOLOGY
SAFETY
SCALE Code System
SHIELDING
SIMULATION
SPECIFICATIONS
Sensitivity/Uncertainty (S/U) Analysis
VALIDATION