Analysis of Core Physics Experiments on Fresh and Irradiated BR3 MOX Fuel in REBUS Program

Abstract

As part of an international experimental program REBUS, core physics experiments have been implemented on a UO 2 core, which consists of 3.3 and 4.0 wt% UO 2 fuel rods in a square pitch of 1.26 cm, and two partial MOX cores, which replace 7 Â 7 UO 2 fuel rods in the center of the UO 2 core by fuel bundles made of fresh BR3 MOX fuel or irradiated BR3 MOX fuel with an average burnup of 20 GWd/t. Burnup calculations of the BR3 MOX fuel were performed using a general-purpose neutronic calculation code SRAC, and core calculations of the three critical cores were carried out using SRAC, a transport calculation code THREEDANT, and a continuous-energy Monte Carlo code MVP. The measured inventories of major U and Pu isotopes on a sample taken from the BR3 MOX fuel agree with the results of the burnup calculations within 3% deviation. The k eff 's of the three cores are from 0.985 to 1.002. The measured burnup reactivity of the irradiated BR3 MOX fuel was well reproduced by the three types of core calculations. The influence of the accuracy of the inventory calculations on burnup reactivity was studied by comparing between the calculated and measured inventories. The result indicates that the biases in the inventory and reactivity calculations compensate each other, and it makes the total biases of the burnup reactivity small.

Multigroup Scattering Matrix Generation Method Using Weight-to-Flux Ratio Based on a Continuous Energy Monte Carlo Technique

“…By comparing Eqs. (9) and (10), we can easily obtain Eq. (11), which shows the essential relationship between the weight and the scattering matrix.…”

“…The underestimation of the diffusion calculations with the SRAC code has been reported for some critical experiment analyses. 9,10) The diffusion coefficient determination method using the present method will be improved in the next step. P1 transport calculations were more accurate than P0 transport calculations; 2D transport calculations with axial buckling correction were sufficiently accurate as well.…”