AR reactor neutronics multi-code validation

Jin Whan Bae; Ethan Peterson; Jonathan Shimwell

doi:10.1088/1741-4326/ac5450

AR reactor neutronics multi-code validation

Jin Whan Bae, Ethan Peterson, Jonathan Shimwell

Research and Test Reactor Physics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

The affordable, robust, compact (ARC) reactor is a tokamak fusion reactor concept currently under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are three important neutronics considerations for the operation of the ARC reactor: (1) breeding of enough tritium in the blanket to sustain the D-T reaction in the plasma; (2) ensuring low fluence on the superconducting toroidal field coils; and (3) assessing neutron volumetric heating in structural components. This work aims to perform a validation of the neutronics analysis approach by code-to-code comparison. State-of-the-art software stacks are employed for the neutronics analysis of the ARC reactor, and a computer-aided design (CAD) model is used directly for Monte Carlo (MC) neutron transport calculations. Three software stacks, Attila-MCNP, OpenMC-DAGMC, and Shift-DAGMC, are used to perform neutronic analyses of a 90° sector CAD model of the ARC reactor. Results show that the flux tallies calculated by the three software stacks are very close. Also, the volumetric heating and tritium breeding values have less than 0.6% relative difference between codes.

Original language	English
Article number	066016
Journal	Nuclear Fusion
Volume	62
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ac5450
State	Published - Jun 2022

Funding

Jonathan Shimwell’s work is partly supported by RCUK Energy Programme [Grant No. EP/I501045/1]. Acknowledgments This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( https://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). Jin Whan Bae’s work is supported by ARPA-E under contract number DE-AR0001369. Ethan Peterson’s work is supported by Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Keywords

arc reactor
neutronics
validation

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1088/1741-4326/ac5450

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title = "AR reactor neutronics multi-code validation",

abstract = "The affordable, robust, compact (ARC) reactor is a tokamak fusion reactor concept currently under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are three important neutronics considerations for the operation of the ARC reactor: (1) breeding of enough tritium in the blanket to sustain the D-T reaction in the plasma; (2) ensuring low fluence on the superconducting toroidal field coils; and (3) assessing neutron volumetric heating in structural components. This work aims to perform a validation of the neutronics analysis approach by code-to-code comparison. State-of-the-art software stacks are employed for the neutronics analysis of the ARC reactor, and a computer-aided design (CAD) model is used directly for Monte Carlo (MC) neutron transport calculations. Three software stacks, Attila-MCNP, OpenMC-DAGMC, and Shift-DAGMC, are used to perform neutronic analyses of a 90° sector CAD model of the ARC reactor. Results show that the flux tallies calculated by the three software stacks are very close. Also, the volumetric heating and tritium breeding values have less than 0.6% relative difference between codes.",

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N2 - The affordable, robust, compact (ARC) reactor is a tokamak fusion reactor concept currently under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are three important neutronics considerations for the operation of the ARC reactor: (1) breeding of enough tritium in the blanket to sustain the D-T reaction in the plasma; (2) ensuring low fluence on the superconducting toroidal field coils; and (3) assessing neutron volumetric heating in structural components. This work aims to perform a validation of the neutronics analysis approach by code-to-code comparison. State-of-the-art software stacks are employed for the neutronics analysis of the ARC reactor, and a computer-aided design (CAD) model is used directly for Monte Carlo (MC) neutron transport calculations. Three software stacks, Attila-MCNP, OpenMC-DAGMC, and Shift-DAGMC, are used to perform neutronic analyses of a 90° sector CAD model of the ARC reactor. Results show that the flux tallies calculated by the three software stacks are very close. Also, the volumetric heating and tritium breeding values have less than 0.6% relative difference between codes.

AB - The affordable, robust, compact (ARC) reactor is a tokamak fusion reactor concept currently under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are three important neutronics considerations for the operation of the ARC reactor: (1) breeding of enough tritium in the blanket to sustain the D-T reaction in the plasma; (2) ensuring low fluence on the superconducting toroidal field coils; and (3) assessing neutron volumetric heating in structural components. This work aims to perform a validation of the neutronics analysis approach by code-to-code comparison. State-of-the-art software stacks are employed for the neutronics analysis of the ARC reactor, and a computer-aided design (CAD) model is used directly for Monte Carlo (MC) neutron transport calculations. Three software stacks, Attila-MCNP, OpenMC-DAGMC, and Shift-DAGMC, are used to perform neutronic analyses of a 90° sector CAD model of the ARC reactor. Results show that the flux tallies calculated by the three software stacks are very close. Also, the volumetric heating and tritium breeding values have less than 0.6% relative difference between codes.

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AR reactor neutronics multi-code validation

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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