Determination of the activity inventory and associated uncertainty quantification for the CROCUS zero power research reactor

The paper describes the source term estimation of CROCUS, the zero power research reactor of EPFL, to be used for dispersion analysis under accidental conditions. To fulfil regulatory requirements, the source term of the CROCUS fuel is estimated through Monte Carlo simulations supplemented by uncertainty quantification, both obtained from the Monte Carlo code MCS developed at UNIST. Even though the depletion capabilities of MCS were pre-existing to this work, no verification has been documented so far. A comparison of MCS and SERPENT results for the determination of the activity inventory for the CROCUS fuel is presented; both codes agree within the 1% for the major isotopes contributing to both inhaled and ingested doses. The source term of CROCUS is calculated under a postulated accident. Eight isotopes, 90Sr, 91Y, 131I, 137Cs, 140Ba, 140La, 144Ce, and 239Pu produce the largest contributions to the effective dose to the public. For uncertainty quantification, nuclear data uncertainties, specifically cross sections and fission yields are considered. Three stochastic sampling methods are implemented in the MCS code namely, TMC, fast-TMC and fast-GRS methods. The performances of the two fast methods have been analyzed when applied to the CROCUS reactor. All three methods produce consistent uncertainty estimates and the two fast methods showed a reduced computational cost compared to the original TMC method. The fission yield uncertainty is the leading factor for the determination of uncertainty of the activity for 90Sr, 91Y, 131I, 137Cs, 140Ba, 140La and 144Ce isotopes. On the other hand, the cross section uncertainty is the leading factor for the uncertainty of 239Pu activity. Finally, the modeling of the irradiation history for CROCUS is simplified to reduce the computational cost. It is demonstrated that the activities for the short lived isotopes (131I and 144Ce) are very sensitive to the irradiation history specifications. Nonetheless, the irradiation history used for the determination of the nominal fuel inventory activity is conservative as it overestimates the activity of the short lived isotopes.

Nuclear data uncertainties for Swiss BWR spent nuclear fuel characteristics

Abdelhamid Dokhane, Hakim Ferroukhi, Mathieu Hursin, Dimitri Rochman, Alexander Vasiliev

The effect of nuclear data (fission yields, cross sections and emitted spectra) is quantified for spent nuclear fuel assemblies from a realistic boiling water reactor operated over 25 cycles. Nominal calculations are performed with the CASMO5, SIMULATE-3 and SNF codes and the ENDF/B-VII.0 nuclear data library. The uncertainties are calculated with the same codes, using a Monte Carlo propagation method, and the ENDF/B-VII.1 covariance matrices. The conclusions are that (1) the nuclear data have a non-negligible impact for spent fuel quantities (e.g., decay heat, neutron emission or isotopic contents); (2) the importance of varying all data together is demonstrated, showing an under- or overestimation of uncertainties if fission yields are sampled separately from the other nuclear data; and finally (3) the importance of considering the full irradiation history (multi-cycle assembly life) is also demonstrated, showing also an under- or overestimation of uncertainties when performing the nuclear data sampling for a single reactor cycle.

2020

VERIFICATION OF A REACTOR PHYSICS CALCULATION SCHEME FOR THE CROCUS REACTOR

Gaëtan Girardin, Mathieu Hursin, Andreas Pautz, Adolfo Rais, Daniel Jerôme Siefman

CROCUS is a zero power (100 W) reactor of the Laboratory for Reactor Physics and Systems Behavior (LRS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL). It is used for teaching and research purposes. Its modeling has relied so far on diffusion theory and point kinetics for the neutronic analysis and simplified thermal hydraulics models for accident analysis. Recently, an effort has started within the LRS to improve its modeling capabilities, the long term goal being to update the CROCUS Safety Analysis Report (SAR) for improved operational flexibility. The present work is focused on the static neutron analysis of CROCUS through the development and preliminary verification of a 3D nodal simulator (e.g. PARCS) model of the reactor, a methodology typically used in the industry for modeling of Light Water Reactors (LWR). The set of homogenized macroscopic cross-sections needed by the core simulator, referred in this work as nuclear data library, is generated by a Monte Carlo based code (e.g. Serpent). The quantities of interest for the verification of the model are the keff, and the control rod worths. An innovative homogenization approach to generate the nuclear data library is considered due to the irregular radial geometry of the CROCUS reactor. The reference solution is provided by another Monte Carlo code, MCNP5. The uncertainty due to the nuclear data in the keff prediction of Serpent is also investigated and amounts to about 500pcm which covers the deviation from unity of keff prediction by MCNP5 and Serpent for a critical CROCUS configuration. PARCS keff predictions are within 400 pcm of the Serpent results.

2014

Reactor simulations with nuclear data uncertainties

Alexander Aures, Friederike Bostelmann, Andreas Pautz, Winfried Zwermann

The paper demonstrates the influence of uncertainties in microscopic nuclear data on the results of reactor simulations, both for stationary and transient states. It gives an overview on the methods in use for uncertainty and sensitivity analyses with respect to nuclear data, and discusses the pros and cons. For full-scale reactor simulations, in particular with coupled neutron transport and thermo-hydraulics, random sampling provides a powerful means to propagate nuclear data uncertainties through the complete calculation sequence. Results of uncertainty analyses performed with the GRS XSUSA - "cross section (XS) Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis" methodology are shown for radial power distributions from steady-state PWR calculations and for the time evolution of the reactor power in the course of a control rod withdrawal from a PWR mini-core. In all cases, the output uncertainties are considerable. For the radial power distributions, relative la uncertainties of up to 10% are observed, and for the power peak during the transient, the relative to uncertainty reaches 20%. These large uncertainties strongly suggest to routinely accompany best-estimate simulations by uncertainty analyses with respect to nuclear data, in particular for systems beyond LWR for which much less operation experience is available.

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