Abstract
A parametric study was performed in which the single and two-phase mixing factors that control crossflow in thermal hydraulic subchannel codes were varied to demonstrate the impact on void fraction distributions and the multiplication factor in a BWR fuel assembly model. The CASL computational tools MPACT and CTF have been coupled together in VERA-CS and were used to perform neutronic and thermal hydraulic calculations for a single BWR fuel assembly model with varying degrees of crossflow. The single-phase mixing factor was varied from 0 to 0.0215. A constant two-phase mixing correction factor of 5.0 was used so that the two-phase mixing factor was varied from 0 to 0.1075 in the study. It was found that each mixing factor case had a relatively similar average axial void fraction profile, but the cases with lower mixing factors showed a larger void fraction difference on a subchannel-by-subchannel basis. Increasing the mixing factor led to an increase in the infinite multiplication factor for the system. The results from this study demonstrate some of the benefits to using a 3-D pin-resolved, thermal hydraulic-and-neutronic coupled code like MPACT/CTF compared to other methodologies commonly used in reactor licensing.
Original language | English |
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Pages | 322-325 |
Number of pages | 4 |
State | Published - 2020 |
Event | 14th International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, GLOBAL 2019 and Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference, TOP FUEL 2019 - Seattle, United States Duration: Sep 22 2019 → Sep 27 2019 |
Conference
Conference | 14th International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, GLOBAL 2019 and Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference, TOP FUEL 2019 |
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Country/Territory | United States |
City | Seattle |
Period | 09/22/19 → 09/27/19 |
Funding
This work was supported in part by an appointment to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory NESLS Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.