Abstract
The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) core physics benchmark problem #6, 3D Hot Full Power (HFP) assembly, from the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) was simulated using the MC21 continuous energy Monte Carlo code coupled with the COBRA-IE subchannel thermal-hydraulics code using the R5EXEC coupling framework. The converged MC21/COBRA-IE solution was compared to results from CASL's VERA-CS code system, MPACT coupled to COBRA-TF (CTF). MPACT is a three-dimensional (3D) whole core transport code, executed in a 2D/1D approach employing planar method of characteristics (MOC) solutions with SP3 in the axial direction, and CTF is a subchannel thermal-hydraulics code designed for Light Water Reactor analysis. Eigenvalues agreed within 63 pcm, axially-integrated normalized radial fission distributions agreed within ±0.2% (root mean square (RMS) difference of 0.1%), local volume-averaged fuel pin temperatures agreed within +8.8/-4.3 C (RMS difference of 3.9 C), and local subchannel coolant temperatures agreed within +0.8/-1.5 C (RMS difference of 0.5 C). A sensitivity study to guide tube heat transfer indicated that a statistically-significant increase in reactivity and shift in radial pin power distribution occurred within the assembly when guide tube heating was enabled.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 338-351 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Progress in Nuclear Energy |
| Volume | 101 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2017 |
Funding
The Naval Nuclear Laboratory authors would like to thank the MC21, COBRA-IE, and R5EXEC development teams for their support during this research. Work for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory authors was funded by the DOE -sponsored “Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors” ( CASL ) project, and ORNL research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 . Work for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory authors was funded by the DOE-sponsored ?Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors? (CASL) project, and ORNL research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Keywords
- COBRA-IE
- CTF
- MC21
- MPACT
- Multiphysics
- VERA