Modification of RFSP to Accommodate a True Two-Group Treatment

RFSP is a computer program to do fuel management calculations for CANDU reactors. Its main function is to calculate neutron flux and power distributions using two-energy-group, three dimensional neutron diffusion theory. However, up to now the treatment has not been true two-group but actually "one-and-half groups". In other words, the previous (1.5-group) version of RFSP lumps the fast fission term into the thermal fission term. This is based on the POWDERPUFS-V Westcott convention. Also, there is no up-scattering term or bundle power over cell flux (H1 factor) for the fast group. While POWDERPUFS-V provides only 1.5 group properties, true two-group cross sections for the design and analysis of CAUDU reactors can be obtained from WIMS-AECL. To treat the full two-group properties, the previous RFSP version was modified by adding the fast fission, up-scatter terms, and H1 factor. This two-group version of RFSP is a convenient tool to accept lattice properties from any advanced lattice code (e.g. WIMS-AECL DRAGON, HELIOS...) and to apply to advanced fuel cycles. In this study, the modification to implement the true two-group treatment was performed only in the subroutines of the ＊SIMULATE module of RFSP. This module is the appropriate one to modify first, since it is used for the tracking of reactor operating histories. The modified two-group RFSP was evaluated with true two-group cross sections from WIMS-AECL. Some tests were performed to verify the modified two-group RFSP and to evaluate the effects of fast fission and up-scatter for three core conditions and four cases corresponding to each condition. The comparisons show that the two-group results are quite reasonable and serve as a verification of the modifications made to RFSP. To assess the long-term impact of the full 2-group treatment, it is necessary to simulate a long period (several months) of reactor history. It will also be necessary to implement the full two-group treatment of reactivity devices and assess the reactivity-device worths.ce worths.