Maintaining a Critical Spectra within Monteburns for a Gas-Cooled Reactor Array by Way of Control Rod Manipulation

Adigun, Babatunde John; Fensin, Michael Lorne; Galloway, Jack D.; Trellue, Holly Renee

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2016.05.025

Title: Maintaining a Critical Spectra within Monteburns for a Gas-Cooled Reactor Array by Way of Control Rod Manipulation

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Abstract

Our burnup study examined the effect of a predicted critical control rod position on the nuclide predictability of several axial and radial locations within a 4×4 graphite moderated gas cooled reactor fuel cluster geometry. To achieve this, a control rod position estimator (CRPE) tool was developed within the framework of the linkage code Monteburns between the transport code MCNP and depletion code CINDER90, and four methodologies were proposed within the tool for maintaining criticality. Two of the proposed methods used an inverse multiplication approach - where the amount of fissile material in a set configuration is slowly altered until criticality is attained - in estimating the critical control rod position. Another method carried out several MCNP criticality calculations at different control rod positions, then used a linear fit to estimate the critical rod position. The final method used a second-order polynomial fit of several MCNP criticality calculations at different control rod positions to guess the critical rod position. The results showed that consistency in prediction of power densities as well as uranium and plutonium isotopics was mutual among methods within the CRPE tool that predicted critical position consistently well. Finall, while the CRPE tool is currently limited to manipulating amore »« less

Authors:

Adigun, Babatunde John ^[1]; Fensin, Michael Lorne ^[1]; Galloway, Jack D. ^[1]; Trellue, Holly Renee ^[1]

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Publication Date:: Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation

OSTI Identifier:: 1304720

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1324003

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-16-22226
Journal ID: ISSN 0306-4549

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford)

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Name: Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford); Journal Volume: 96; Journal ID: ISSN 0306-4549

Publisher:: Elsevier

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; Criticality search; Critical spectra; Monteburns; Gas cooled reactors

Citation Formats


                    Adigun, Babatunde John, Fensin, Michael Lorne, Galloway, Jack D., and Trellue, Holly Renee. Maintaining a Critical Spectra within Monteburns for a Gas-Cooled Reactor Array by Way of Control Rod Manipulation.  United States: N. p., 2016. 
Web.  doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2016.05.025.

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                    Adigun, Babatunde John, Fensin, Michael Lorne, Galloway, Jack D., & Trellue, Holly Renee. Maintaining a Critical Spectra within Monteburns for a Gas-Cooled Reactor Array by Way of Control Rod Manipulation.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2016.05.025

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                    Adigun, Babatunde John, Fensin, Michael Lorne, Galloway, Jack D., and Trellue, Holly Renee. Sat .  
"Maintaining a Critical Spectra within Monteburns for a Gas-Cooled Reactor Array by Way of Control Rod Manipulation".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2016.05.025.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1304720.

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@article{osti_1304720,

  title        = {Maintaining a Critical Spectra within Monteburns for a Gas-Cooled Reactor Array by Way of Control Rod Manipulation},

  author       = {Adigun, Babatunde John and Fensin, Michael Lorne and Galloway, Jack D. and Trellue, Holly Renee},

  abstractNote = {Our burnup study examined the effect of a predicted critical control rod position on the nuclide predictability of several axial and radial locations within a 4×4 graphite moderated gas cooled reactor fuel cluster geometry. To achieve this, a control rod position estimator (CRPE) tool was developed within the framework of the linkage code Monteburns between the transport code MCNP and depletion code CINDER90, and four methodologies were proposed within the tool for maintaining criticality. Two of the proposed methods used an inverse multiplication approach - where the amount of fissile material in a set configuration is slowly altered until criticality is attained - in estimating the critical control rod position. Another method carried out several MCNP criticality calculations at different control rod positions, then used a linear fit to estimate the critical rod position. The final method used a second-order polynomial fit of several MCNP criticality calculations at different control rod positions to guess the critical rod position. The results showed that consistency in prediction of power densities as well as uranium and plutonium isotopics was mutual among methods within the CRPE tool that predicted critical position consistently well. Finall, while the CRPE tool is currently limited to manipulating a single control rod, future work could be geared toward implementing additional criticality search methodologies along with additional features.},

  doi          = {10.1016/j.anucene.2016.05.025},

  journal      = {Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford)},

  number       = ,

  volume       = 96,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016},

  month        = {Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016}

}

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