• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.58-63
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• 2019

This paper presents preliminary analysis and results on IASCC sensitivity of a core shroud in the reactor pressure vessel. First, neutron irradiation flux distribution of the reactor internals was calculated by using the Monte Carlo simulation code, MCNP6.1 and the nuclear data library, ENDF/B-VII.1. Second, based on the neutron irradiation flux distribution, temperature and stress distributions of the core shroud during normal operation were determined by performing finite element analysis using the commercial finite element analysis program, ABAQUS, considering irradiation aging-related degradation mechanisms. Last, IASCC sensitivity of the core shroud was assessed by using the IASCC sensitivity definition of EPRI MRP-211 and the finite element analysis results. As a result of the preliminary analysis, it was found that the point at which the maximum IASCC sensitivity is derived varies over operating time, initially moving from the shroud plate located in the center of the core to the top shroud plate-ring connection brace over operating time. In addition, it was concluded that IASCC will not occur on the core shroud even after 60 years of operation (40EFPYs) because the maximum IASCC sensitivity is less than 0.5.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.318-329
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• 2016

Reducing critical boron concentration in a commercial pressurized water reactor core offers many advantages in view of safety and economics. This paper presents a preliminary investigation of a reduced-boron pressurized water reactor core to achieve a clearly negative moderator temperature coefficient at hot zero power using the newly-proposed "Burnable absorber-Integrated Guide Thimble" (BigT) absorbers. The reference core is based on a commercial OPR1000 equilibrium configuration. The reduced-boron ORP1000 configuration was determined by simply replacing commercial gadolinia-based burnable absorbers with the optimized BigT-loaded design. The equilibrium cores in this study were directly searched via repetitive Monte Carlo depletion calculations until convergence. The results demonstrate that, with the same fuel management scheme as in the reference core, application of the BigT absorbers can effectively reduce the critical boron concentration at the beginning of cycle by about 65 ppm. More crucially, the analyses indicate promising potential of the reduced-boron OPR1000 core with the BigT absorbers, as its moderator temperature coefficient at the beginning of cycle is clearly more negative and all other vital neutronic parameters are within practical safety limits. All simulations were completed using the Monte Carlo Serpent code with the ENDF/B-VII.0 library.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.14-18
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• 2020

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has carried out various neutronics experiments in the commissioning stage of the Jordan Research and Training Reactor (JRTR), and this paper introduces the results of first criticality prediction and experiment for the JRTR. The Monte Carlo Code for Advanced Reactor Design and analysis (McCARD) with the ENDF/B-VII.0 nuclear library was used for prediction calculations in the process of the first criticality approach, which was performed to provide reference for the first criticality experiment. In the experiment, fuel loading was carried out by measuring the inverse multiplication factor (1/M) to predict the number of fuel assemblies at the first criticality, and the first critical was reached on April 25, 2016. Comparing the first criticality prediction and experiment, the calculated and measured CAR (Control Absorber Rod) heights for the first criticality were 575 mm and 570.5 mm, respectively, that is, the difference between the two results was approximately 5 mm. From this result, it was confirmed that JRTR manufacturing and various experiments had successfully progressed as designed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.996-1005
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• 2017

In this paper, nuclear data for cross sections of the $^{64}Zn(n,2n)^{63}Zn$, $^{64}Zn(n,3n)^{62}Zn$, $^{64}Zn(n,p)^{64}Cu$, $^{66}Zn(n,2n)^{65}Zn$, $^{66}Zn(n,p)^{66}Cu$, $^{67}Zn(n,p)^{67}Cu$, $^{68}Zn(n,p)^{68}Cu$, and $^{68}Zn(n,{\alpha})^{65}Ni$ reactions were studied for neutron energies up to 40 MeV. In the nuclear model calculations, TALYS 1.6, ALICE/ASH, and EMPIRE 3.2 codes were used. Furthermore, the nuclear data for the (n,2n) and (n,p) reaction channels were also calculated using various cross-section systematics at energies around 14-15 MeV. The code calculations were analyzed and obtained using the different level densities in the exciton model and the geometry-dependent hybrid model. The results obtained from the excitation function calculations are discussed and compared with literature experimental data, ENDF/B-VII.1, and the TENDL-2015 evaluated data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.715-731
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• 2021

Uncertainties are calculated for pressurized water reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) characteristics. The deterministic code STREAM is currently being used as an SNF analysis tool to obtain isotopic inventory, radioactivity, decay heat, neutron and gamma source strengths. The SNF analysis capability of STREAM was recently validated. However, the uncertainty analysis is yet to be conducted. To estimate the uncertainty due to nuclear data, STREAM is used to perturb nuclear cross section (XS) and resonance integral (RI) libraries produced by NJOY99. The perturbation of XS and RI involves the stochastic sampling of ENDF/B-VII.1 covariance data. To estimate the uncertainty due to modeling parameters (fuel design and irradiation history), surrogate models are built based on polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) and variance-based sensitivity indices (i.e., Sobol' indices) are employed to perform global sensitivity analysis (GSA). The calculation results indicate that uncertainty of SNF due to modeling parameters are also very important and as a result can contribute significantly to the difference of uncertainties due to nuclear data and modeling parameters. In addition, the surrogate model offers a computationally efficient approach with significantly reduced computation time, to accurately evaluate uncertainties of SNF integral characteristics.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2670-2689
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• 2022

STREAM - a lattice transport calculation code with method of characteristics for the purpose of light water reactor analysis - has been developed by the Computational Reactor Physics and Experiment laboratory (CORE) of the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST). Recently, efforts have been taken to develop a photon module in STREAM to assess photon heating and the influence of gamma photon transport on power distributions, as only neutron transport was considered in previous STREAM versions. A multi-group photon library is produced for STREAM based on the ENDF/B-VII.1 library with the use of the library-processing code NJOY. The developed photon solver for the computation of 2D and 3D distributions of photon flux and energy deposition is based on the method of characteristics like the neutron solver. The photon library and photon module produced and implemented for STREAM are verified on VERA pin and assembly problems by comparison with the Monte Carlo code MCS - also developed at UNIST. A short analysis of the impact of photon transport during depletion and thermal hydraulics feedback is presented for a 2D core also from the VERA benchmark.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2095-2103
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• 2021

A small power ADS design using thorium oxide and diluent matrix reprocessed fuel is proposed for a high transmutation rate, small reactivity swing, and strong safety features. Two fuel matrices (CERCER and CERMET) and different recycled fuel compositions recovered from UO₂ spent fuels with 45 GWd/tU and 60 GWd/tU burnup were investigated to determine the suitable fuel for the ADS. It was found that the transmutation of each isotope depends on TRU initial loading amount. After examining the cores, the results show that CERCER fueled ADS has a negative coolant void reactivity (CVR) and a smaller radiotoxicity at discharge compared to that of CERMET core. It implies that CERCER fuel has enhanced safety features and more flavor in terms of radiotoxicity management. To increase fuel utilization and core operation efficiency, a simple assembly shuffling pattern for the CERCER fueled ADS is also proposed. Eigenvalue and burnup calculations were conducted using Serpent 2 with ENDF/B-VII.0 library in both kcode and external source modes, and it indicates that the results of transmutation analyses obtained by kcode only is reliable to discuss the transmutation potential of ADS. Burnup calculation with the fixed-source mode is essential to be used for more practical results of the transmutation by ADS.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.942-948
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• 2021

The aim of this work is to help inform the decision for choosing a convenient material for the PGAA (Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis) collimator plug to be installed at the tangential channel of the Moroccan Triga Mark II Research Reactor. Two families of materials are usually used for collimator construction: a mixture of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with boron, which is commonly used to moderate and absorb neutrons, and heavy materials, either for gamma absorption or for fast neutron absorption. An investigation of two different collimator designs was performed using N-Particle Monte Carlo MCNP6.2 code with the ENDF/B-VII.1 and MCLIP84 libraries. For each design, carbon steel and lead materials were used separately as collimator heavy materials. The performed study focused on both the impact on neutron beam quality and the neutron-gamma background at the exit of the collimator beam tube. An analysis and assessment of the principal findings is presented in this paper, as well as recommendations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.1022-1028
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• 2024

A neutronics study of a supercritical CO₂-cooled fast reactor core for nuclear propulsion has been performed in this work. The thermal power of the reactor core is 30 MWth and a ceramic UO₂ fuel can be used to achieve a 20-year lifetime without refueling. In order to make a compact core with inherent safety features, the drum-type reactivity control system and folding-type shutdown system are adopted. In addition, we suggest a cold shutdown system using gadolinium as a spectral shift absorber (SSA) against flooding. Although there is a penalty of U-235 enrichment for the core embedded with the cold shutdown system, it effectively mitigates the increment of reactivity at the flooding of seawater. In this study, the neutronics analyses have been performed by using the continuous energy Monte Carlo Serpent 2 code with the evaluated nuclear data file ENDF/B-VII.1 Library. The supercritical CO₂-cooled fast reactor core is characterized in view of important safety parameters such as the reactivity worth of reactivity control systems, fuel temperature coefficient (FTC), coolant temperature coefficient (CTC), and coolant temperature-density coefficient (CTDC). We can say that the suggested core has inherent safety features and enough flexibility for load-following operation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.900-906
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• 2024

The Passively-Cooled Molten Salt Fast Reactor (PMFR) is one of the advanced design concepts of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR) which utilizes a natural circulation for the primary loop and aims to attain a long-life operation without any means of fuel reprocessing. For an extended operation period, it is necessary to have enough fissile material, i.e., high excess reactivity, at the onset of operation. Since the PMFR is based on a fast neutron spectrum, direct implementation of a burnable absorber concept for the control of excess reactivity would be ineffective. Therefore, a localized moderator concept that encircles the active core has been envisioned for the PMFR which enables the effective utilization of a burnable absorber to achieve low reactivity swing and long-life operation. The modified PMFR design that incorporates a moderator and burnable absorber is presented, where depletion calculation is performed to estimate the reactor lifetime and reactivity swing to assess the feasibility of the proposed design. All the presented neutronic analysis has been conducted based on the Monte Carlo Serpent2 code with ENDF/B-VII.1 library.