A Detailed Analysis of the H.B. Robinson-2 Reactor Pressure Vessel Dosimetry Benchmark

Romain Vuiart, Mariya Brovchenko, Julien Taforeau and Eric Dumonteil
Additional contact information
Romain Vuiart: Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), PSN-RES/SNC/LN, F-92260 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
Mariya Brovchenko: Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), PSN-RES/SNC/LN, F-92260 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
Julien Taforeau: Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), PSN-RES/SNC/LN, F-92260 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
Eric Dumonteil: Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA), Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l’Univers, Université Paris Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-25

Abstract: The operation of many nuclear pressurized water reactors is being extended beyond their design lifetime limit. From the perspective of possible further lifetime extension, safety requirements are a priority. Therefore, the quantification of the neutron irradiation embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is an important issue, as this is a guiding parameter that influences the reactor lifetime. In this context, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire developed a calculation scheme for the analysis of RPV aging under neutron irradiation, named VACS (vessel aging calculation scheme). VACS couples a deterministic approach (CASMO5 and SIMULATE5) to evaluate the full-core fission neutron source term and a Monte Carlo modeling (MCNP6) approach to model the neutron attenuation from the core to sites of interest (RPV, surveillance capsules, etc.). To ensure the reliability of aging predictions, this paper describes a detailed analysis of the neutron H.B. Robinson-2 reactor pressure vessel dosimetry benchmark. The results indicate that VACS shows satisfactory accuracy when the ENDF-B/VII.1 or JEFF-3.3 nuclear data libraries are used in the attenuation calculation. However, the use of ENDF-B/VIII.0 leads to significantly worse results.

Keywords: nuclear safety; vessel aging; vessel embrittlement; validation; dosimetry benchmark; H.B. Robinson-2; neutronics (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: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/14/5098/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/14/5098/ (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:15:y:2022:i:14:p:5098-:d:861339

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 ().