Criticality calculations of the Very High Temperature Reactor Critical Assembly benchmark with Serpent and SCALE/KENO-VI

Journal Article · 29 December 2015 · Annals of Nuclear Energy

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2015.12.008 · OSTI ID:1259313

Bostelmann, Friederike ^[1]; Hammer, Hans R. ^[2]; Ortensi, Javier ^[3]; Strydom, Gerhard ^[3]; Velkov, Kiril ^[1]; Zwermann, Winfried ^[1]

---

1. Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit gGmbH (GRS), Garching (Germany)
2. Texas A & M University, College Station, TX (United States)
3. Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

Within the framework of the IAEA Coordinated Research Project on HTGR Uncertainty Analysis in Modeling, criticality calculations of the Very High Temperature Critical Assembly experiment were performed as the validation reference to the prismatic MHTGR-350 lattice calculations. Criticality measurements performed at several temperature points at this Japanese graphite-moderated facility were recently included in the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments and represent one of the few data sets available for the validation of HTGR lattice physics. Here, this work compares VHTRC criticality simulations utilizing the Monte Carlo codes Serpent and SCALE/KENO-VI. Reasonable agreement was found between Serpent and KENO-VI, but only the use of the latest ENDF cross section library release, namely the ENDF/B-VII.1 library, led to an improved match with the measured data. Furthermore, the fourth beta release of SCALE 6.2/KENO-VI showed significant improvements from the current SCALE 6.1.2 version, compared to the experimental values and Serpent.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy; USDOE; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP); USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1259313
• Report Number(s): INL/JOU-15-34867; PII: S0306454915300177
• Journal Information: Annals of Nuclear Energy, Journal Name: Annals of Nuclear Energy Journal Issue: C Vol. 90; ISSN 0306-4549
• Publisher: ElsevierCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English