• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3217-3228
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• 2021

Flow blockage of the fuel assembly in the lead-based fast reactor (LFR) may produce critical local spots, which will result in cladding failure and threaten reactor safety. In this study, the flow blockage characteristics were analyzed with the sub-channel analysis method, and the circumferentially-varied method was employed for considering the non-uniform distribution of circumferential temperature. The developed sub-channel analysis code SACOS-PB was validated by a heat transfer experiment in a blocked 19-rod bundle cooled by lead-bismuth eutectic. The deviations between the predicted coolant temperature and experimental values are within ±5%, including small and large flow blockage scenarios. And the temperature distributions of the fuel rod could be better simulated by the circumferentially-varied method for the small blockage scenario. Based on the validated code, the analysis of blockage characteristics was conducted. It could be seen from the temperature and flow distributions that a large blockage accident is more destructive compared with a small one. The sensitivity analysis shows that the closer the blockage location is to the exit, the more dangerous the accident is. Similarly, a larger blockage length will lead to a more serious case. And a higher exit temperature will be generated resulting from a higher peak coolant temperature of the blocked region. This work could provide a reference for the future design and development of the LFR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2112-2124
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• 2023

With the rise of economic and safety standards for nuclear reactors, new concepts of Gen-IV reactors and modular reactors showed more complex designs that challenge current tools for reactor physics analysis. A Monte Carlo (MC) two-step method was proposed in this work. This calculation scheme uses the continuous-energy MC method to generate multi-group cross-sections from heterogeneous models. The multi-group MC method, which can adapt locally-heterogeneous models, is used in the core calculation step. This calculation scheme is verified using a Gen-IV modular lead-based fast reactor (LFR) benchmark case. The influence of homogenized patterns, scatter approximations, flux separable approximation, and local heterogeneity in core calculation on simulation results are investigated. Results showed that the cross-sections generated using the 3D assembly model with a locally heterogeneous representation of control rods lead to an accurate estimation with less than 270 pcm bias in core reactivity, 0.5% bias in control rod worth, and 1.5% bias on power distribution. The study verified the applicability of multi-group cross-sections generated with the MC method for LFR analysis. The study also proved the feasibility of multi-group MC in core calculation with local heterogeneity, which saves 85% time compared to the continuous-energy MC.