Abstract
The SCALE Leap-In for Cores at Equilibrium (SLICE) method leverages capabilities available in the SCALE modeling and simulation suite to facilitate rapid estimation of equilibrium core inventories for flowing-pebble reactor systems in support of a variety of fuel cycle applications. New capabilities that compliment the SLICE method have been developed for the ORIGAMI interface to ORIGEN in SCALE to facilitate rapid depletion calculations for flowing-pebble systems. New features include a more generalized and flexible means of specifying interpolation dimensions, the ability to evaluate pebbles moving through user-defined “axial zones” in each of the pebble's multiple passes through the core, and the treatment of differential velocities across radial channels (representing both pebble-to-pebble and wall-to-pebble friction effects). ORIGAMI thus provides an efficient user interface to define a pebble's path and irradiation histories of its multiple passes through the core to calculate the pebble's time-dependent inventories, which can be useful in various applications domains such as safeguards, criticality safety, and disposal analyses. The consistency of new ORIGAMI approach was verified against the solution obtained using the SLICE method with ORIGEN-ARP, showing excellent agreement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 111564 |
| Journal | Annals of Nuclear Energy |
| Volume | 223 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2025 |
Funding
This work was performed under the support of NRC, USA Contract IAA 31310019N0012; the authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of the NRC, USA for this work. The authors additionally express their gratitude toward Cihangir Celik and Jianwei Hu of ORNL for their thoughtful review comments on drafts of this work. 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 ).