International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Research Applications and Utilization of Accelerators
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ADS/ET-07
Deterministic Analyses of YALINA Thermal Subcritical Assembly with DRAGON– PARTISN Software A. Talamo1, Y. Gohar1, Z. Zhong1, F. Kondev1, G. Aliberti1, I. Bolshinsky2, H. Kiyavitskaya3, V. Bournos3, Y. Fokov3, C. Routkovskaya3, and I. Serafimovich3 1Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, USA Corresponding Author: alby@anl.gov This study analyzes the YALINA Thermal subcritical assembly with a deterministic calculation methodology. Within this methodology, the DRAGON code, developed at Polytechnique de Montreal (Canada), has been used to generate the macroscopic cross sections for about 50 different volumes of the assembly. The DRAGON code is linked to a nuclear data library with 179 energy group microscopic cross sections. In the DRAGON code, the geometry of the assembly has been simplified. The generated macroscopic cross sections have been used in the PARTISN code, developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), which modeled the facility in a detailed three-dimensional geometry. In order to facilitate the deterministic modeling of the assembly the interface software DRAGON–PARTISN has been developed in C programming language. The DRAGON–PARTISN software reads the ASCII macroscopic cross sections for a specific material from the DRAGON output and it rearranges them into the material section of the PARTISN input. The DRAGON-PARTISN software can utilize multiple DRAGON outputs files and for each of the output file the user can choose which material to process. According to the DRAGON material processing sequence, the macroscopic cross sections are sequentially stored in the material section of the PARTISN input. The DRAGON–PARTISN software also can process the scattering matrix up to the first moment. The DRAGON-PARTISN is a general purpose software and it can be easily applied to any deterministic reactor design analyses. For a fuel cell calculation, the DRAGON simulations have shown that a simple two-region homogenization of the fuel rod and of polyethylene is not accurate and it results in several thousands pcm difference from the MCNP results. Consequently, a fine subdivision of the moderator volume around the fuel pin has been used for the fuel cell calculation. With this more accurately modelling DRAGON, PARTISN and MCNP provide the same multiplication factor for a fuel cell. The deterministic analyses have been extended to the full core PARTISN calculation of the YALINA Thermal assembly. The PARTISN results include the multiplication factor and the He-3 reaction rate axial profile in the experimental channels of the facility. The authors have assigned to the International Atomic Energy Agency a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to publish this paper.
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