Investigation of the effects of soluble boron tracking on coupled CTF / NEM, LWR simulations
- Pennsylvania State University, Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, 331 Reber Building, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of introducing a boron tracking capability to the COBRA-TF / NEM code coupling. The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) versions of COBRA-TF - CTF, and Nodal Expansion Method (NEM) codes are utilized. Previous implementations of the CTF / NEM coupled code had no capability to model soluble boron feedback effects due to boron transport. This study builds upon the validation and qualification efforts of the boron tracking model implementation in CTF by modeling the boron feedback calculated by the CTF boron tracking model in NEM. The core model chosen for this study is the Purdue MOX/UO{sub 2} core model used in the 2007 OECD/NRC code benchmark study. Following the implementation of an explicit online coupling scheme and accompanying k-search routine, the newly coupled CTF / NEM code version with boron tracking is compared to prior results of the non-boron tracking CTF / NEM code version at steady-state hot full power and hot zero power conditions. It was found that the boron tracking model exhibited little influence on the hot zero power result as expected due to a smaller heat flux, which does not significantly change the moderator density and boron concentration as the moderator travels up the axial core length. Meanwhile the boron tracking model had a much greater impact on the hot full power results, predicting the critical inlet boron concentration to be 9.9 ppm below the non-boron tracking result due to greater and more rapid changes in boron concentration corresponding to the reduction in moderator density from being more rapidly heated. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22212836
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: M and C 2013: 2013 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering, Sun Valley, ID (United States), 5-9 May 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 11 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering - M and C 2013| 3016 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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