Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Verification of a two-step code system MCS/RAST-F to fast reactor core analysis

  • Tran, Tuan Quoc (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) ;
  • Cherezov, Alexey (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) ;
  • Du, Xianan (School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University) ;
  • Lee, Deokjung (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology)
  • Received : 2021.07.26
  • Accepted : 2021.10.25
  • Published : 2022.05.25
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Abstract

RAST-F is a new full-core analysis code based on the two-step approach that couples a multi-group cross-section generation Monte-Carlo code MCS and a multi-group nodal diffusion solver. To demonstrate the feasibility of using MCS/RAST-F for fast reactor analysis, this paper presents the coupled nodal code verification results for the MET-1000 and CAR-3600 benchmark cores. Three different multi-group cross-section calculation schemes are employed to improve the agreement between the nodal and reference solutions. The reference solution is obtained by the MCS code using continuous-energy nuclear data. Additionally, the MCS/RAST-F nodal solution is verified with results based on cross-section generated by collision probability code TULIP. A good agreement between MCS/RAST-F and reference solution is observed with less than 120 pcm discrepancy in keff and less than 1.2% root-mean-square error in power distribution. This study confirms the two-step approach MCS/RAST-F as a reliable tool for the three-dimensional simulation of reactor cores with fast spectrum.

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Acknowledgement

This work was partially supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT). (No.NRF-2017M2A8A2018595). This work was partially supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT). (No.NRF-2021M2D1A101906111).

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