Comparison of Standard Light Water Reactor Cross-Section Libraries using the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Pressurized Water Reactor Standard Core Loading Benchmark Problem

Abstract

Abstract. This paper compares contemporary and historical light water reactor shielding and pressure vessel dosimetry cross-section libraries for a pressurized water reactor calculational benchmark problem with a standard out-in core loading. The calculational benchmark problem was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory by the request of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and used the Oak Ridge National Laboratory two-dimensional discrete ordinates code DORT and the BUGLE-93 cross-section library for the calculations. In this paper, a Westinghouse three-dimensional discrete ordinates code with parallel processing, the RAPTOR-M3G code was used. A variety of cross section libraries were used with RAPTOR-M3G including the BUGLE-93, BUGLE-96, and BUGLE-B7 cross-section libraries developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the broad-group ALPAN-VII.0 cross-section library developed at Westinghouse. In comparing the calculation-to-calculation reaction rates using the BUGLE-93 cross-section library at the thermal shield, pressure vessel, and cavity capsules, for eleven dosimetry reaction rates, a maximum relative difference of 5% was observed, with the exception of 65 Cu(n,2n) in the pressure vessel capsule that had a 90% relative difference with respect to the reference results. It is thought that the 65 Cu(n,2n) reaction rate reported in the reference for the pressure vessel capsule is not correct. In considering the libraries developed after BUGLE-93, a maximum relative difference of 12% was observed in reaction rates, with respect to the reference results, for 237 Np(n,f) in the cavity capsule using BUGLE-B7.

Production and testing of the ENEA-Bologna VITJEFF32.BOLIB (JEFF-3.2) multi-group (199 n + 42 γ) cross section library in AMPX format for nuclear fission applications

“…Concerning the ancillary systems to the S N transport codes, the free availability, since 2001 of the ENEABologna BOT3P system, based on combinatorial geometry algorithms, it is underlined here. BOT3P, now available in the BOT3P-5.3 [9] version, can be used in particular for the automatic generation and the graphical verification of the spatial mesh grids of the geometrical model of the following S N 3D transport codes: TORT-3.2 [10] (ORNL DOORS [11] system], LANL PARTISN [12], KATRIN (KIAM CNCSN 2009 [13] system) and the commercial code RAPTOR-M3G [14], currently used [15] by Westinghouse together with BOT3P. Up to recent times, only the 3D Monte Carlo codes could obtain satisfactory results with high calculation precision in the description of complex geometries.…”