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Title: Sensitivity analysis of VERA-CS and FRAPCON coupling in a multiphysics environment

Journal Article · · Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford)

A demonstration and description of the LOCA Toolkit for US light water reactors (LOTUS) is presented. Through LOTUS, the core simulator VERA-CS developed by CASL is coupled with the fuel performance code FRAPCON. The coupling is performed with consistent uncertainty propagation with all model inconsistencies being well-documented. Monte Carlo sampling is performed on a single 17 × 17 fuel assembly with a three cycle depletion case. Both uncertainty quantification (UQ) and sensitivity analysis (SA) are used at multiple states within the simulation to elucidate the behavior of minimum departure from nucleate boiling ratio (MDNBR), maximum fuel centerline temperature (MFCT), and gap conductance at peak power (GCPP). The SA metrics used are the Pearson correlation coefficient, Sobol sensitivity indices, and the density-based, delta moment independent measures. Results for MDNBR show consistency among all SA measures, as well for all states throughout the fuel lifecycle. MFCT results contain consistent rankings between SA measures, but show differences throughout the lifecycle. GCPP exhibits predominantly linear relations at low and high burnup, but highly nonlinear relations at intermediate burnup due to abrupt shifts between models. As a result, such behavior is largely undetectable to traditional regression or variance-based methods and demonstrates the utility of density-based methods.

Research Organization:
Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517
OSTI ID:
1478504
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1549356
Report Number(s):
INL/JOU-17-42278-Rev000
Journal Information:
Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford), Vol. 111, Issue C; ISSN 0306-4549
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 6 works
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