Effect of crossflow modeling on vapor void fraction and criticality in a BWR fuel assembly using MPACT/CTF

Jacob P. Gorton, Benjamin S. Collins, Nicholas R. Brown

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

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 languageEnglish
Pages322-325
Number of pages4
StatePublished - 2020
Event14th International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, GLOBAL 2019 and Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference, TOP FUEL 2019 - Seattle, United States
Duration: Sep 22 2019Sep 27 2019

Conference

Conference14th International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, GLOBAL 2019 and Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference, TOP FUEL 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySeattle
Period09/22/1909/27/19

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.

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