SCALE capabilities for high temperature gas-cooled reactor analysis. (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bostelmann, Friederike; Celik, Cihangir; Williams, Mark L.; Ellis, Ronald J.; Ilas, Germina; Wieselquist, William A.
• Is Part Of: Annals of nuclear energy. Volume 147(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: SCALE -- Double-heterogeneity -- HTR-10 -- HTTR -- Validation -- Pebble-bed reactor; Nuclear energy -- Periodicals; Nuclear engineering -- Periodicals; 621.4805
• DOI: 10.1016/j.anucene.2020.107673
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-4549

Abstract

Highlights: SCALE's capabilities for double heterogeneous fuel components are described. Verification/validation of multigroup and continuous-energy methods are performed. Excellent results in code-to-code comparisons and with experiments are obtained. The choice of ENDF/B library is critical for the agreement calculation/experiments. Abstract: The SCALE code system's ability to address stochastic distributions of fuel particles within a graphite matrix has been revisited in both multigroup (MG) features and continuous-energy (CE) Monte Carlo methods. This paper describes current and emergent SCALE capabilities within the CSAS sequence to address double-heterogeneous systems and presents verification and validation studies of these methods and data. Good agreement was obtained for a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) fuel pebble model between CSAS MG eigenvalue calculations and corresponding CE reference solutions. Code-to-code comparisons for this HTGR pebble model showed good agreement of CSAS-KENO and CSAS-Shift CE calculations and the Serpent and MCNP codes in terms of eigenvalues and reaction rate ratios. Validation studies based on two HTGR experiments resulted in good agreement between MG and CE results, as well as between experiment and calculation, although the level of agreement was significantly influenced by the applied ENDF/B nuclear data library.