Evaluation of BWR Burnup Calculations Using Deterministic Lattice Codes SCALE-6.2, WIMS-10A and CASMO5

Anna Detkina, Aiden Peakman, Dzianis Litskevich, Jenq-Horng Liang and Bruno Merk
Additional contact information
Anna Detkina: School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Aiden Peakman: National Nuclear Laboratory, Chadwick House, Warrington WA3 6AE, UK
Dzianis Litskevich: School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Jenq-Horng Liang: Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan
Bruno Merk: School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: The UK nuclear innovation programme supported by the government includes preparation for future ABWR construction. The UK has significant expertise in building and operating gas-cooled nuclear reactors and some experience with PWRs, while there is limited knowledge in BWR technologies. Hence, an important aim of this work is to understand the discrepancies between codes to assess uncertainties in BWR lattice and depletion calculations, while identifying specific development demands to progress existing tools into extended applications. The objective of the study is to quantify the discrepancy between SCALE-6.2, CASMO5 and the UK WIMS-10A deterministic lattice code for BWR lattice and burnup modelling. Two models of BWR systems were considered for this new systematic comparison. They are a single BWR pin-cell with UO 2 fuel only, and a 3 by 3 array of BWR UO 2 fuel rods with gadolinia rod in the centre. Criticality over burnup was estimated for both models using these codes. Spectral indexes, number densities and neutron spectrum were compared for several burnup stages using SCALE-6.2 and WIMS-10A. The study showed that k inf obtained with CASMO5 was in a good agreement with the SCALE-6.2. A clear discrepancy in behaviour was observed between WIMS-10A and SCALE-6.2 as well as CASMO5.

Keywords: nuclear fuel; burnup credit; BWR; SCALE-6.2; WIMS-10A; CASMO5; codes comparison; lattice computations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2573/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2573/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:10:p:2573-:d:360111

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().