Neutron cross section sensitivity analysis of UO2 and MOX core physics experiments on light water reactors |
| |
Authors: | Tomohiro Sakai Toru Yamamoto |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. Nuclear Energy System Safety Department, Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, Toranomon Towers Office, 4-1-28 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0001, Japansakai-tomohiro@jnes.go.jp;3. Nuclear Energy System Safety Department, Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, Toranomon Towers Office, 4-1-28 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan |
| |
Abstract: | The perturbation theory based on the transport calculation has been applied to study sensitivity of neutron multiplication factors (keff's) to neutron cross sections used for the reactivity analysis of UO2 and MOX core physics experiments on light water reactors. The studied cross sections were neutron capture, fission and elastic scattering cross sections, and a number of fission neutrons, ν. The obtained sensitivities were multiplied to relative differences in the cross sections between JENDL-4.0 and JENDL-3.3 in order to estimate the reactivity effects. The results show that the increase in keff, 0.3%Δk/kk′, from JENDL-3.3 to JENDL-4.0 for the UO2 core is mainly attributed to the decreases in the capture cross sections of 238U. On the other hand, there are various contributions from the differences in the cross sections of U, Pu, and Am isotopes for the MOX cores. The major contributions to increase in keff are decreases in the capture cross sections of 238U,238Pu, 239Pu, and those to decrease in keff are decreases in ν of 239Pu and increases in the capture cross sections of241Am. They compensate each other, and the difference in keff between JENDL-3.3 and JENDL-4.0 is less than 0.1%Δk/kk′ and relatively small. |
| |
Keywords: | light water reactor UO2 MOX core physics experiment perturbation theory transport calculation neutron cross section sensitivity analysis JENDL-3 3 JENDL-4 0 |
|
|