[2L18-21] Criticality Analysis 2

[2L20] Preliminary criticality analysis for a damaged reactor core

*Hoang Hai Nguyen¹, Kenya Suyama¹ (1. JAEA)

Keywords:Criticality, damaged core, Serpent

A preliminary investigation for a PWR core damaged at different levels was performed for the understanding of its criticality characteristics. The core model based on the Watts Bar Nuclear 1 reactor described in the VERA Core Physics Benchmark. The damaged core was simulated by replacing different layers of fuel assemblies by coolant, void, or homogeneous debris, respectively. The effects of the parameters including the fuel enrichment, the boron concentration of the coolant, the temperature of the fuel and coolant on the k_eff of the damaged core were estimated by the Serpent code with JENDL-5 library.
The results showed the decrease of k_eff dependent on the number of damaged fuel assembly layers, considering the influence of the above parameters.