Experimental analyses results on the BFS 58-1-I1 critical assemblies

not registered; Sato, Wakaei*; Iwai, Takehiko*

This report describes the updated analyses results on the BFS-58-1-I1 core. The experiment was conducted at BFS-2 of Russian Institute of Physics & Power Engineering (IPPE). The central region is "non-Uranium fuel zone", where only Pu can induce fission reaction. The non-U zone is surrounded by MOx fuel zone, which is surrounded by U0 fuel zone. Sodium is used for simulating the coolant material. As it was found that the lattice pitch had been incorrectly understood in the past analyses, all items have been re-calculated using the corrected number densities. Furthermore, significantly softened neutron spectrum in the central region caused problems in applying the plate-stretch model that has been established for fast reactor cores through JUPITER experimental analyses. Both keeping the pellet density and using SRAC library for the elastic cross section for lighter nuclides allow us to obtain reasonable analysis accuracy on the spectral indices that were measured at the center of the core. Application of such a cell model was justified through comparison among various cell models using continuous energy Monte-Carlo code MVP. It is confirmed that both the MOX zone and the U0 zone can be correctly evaluated by the plate-stretch model. Based on the updated cell calculation, both the effective multiplication factor (k-eff)and the spectral indexes agree well with the measured values. The transport and mesh-size correction is made for the k-eff evaluation. Those results also agree well within reasonable difference between those obtained by IPPE and CEA, which were obtained by using sub-group method or continuous-energy Monte Carlo code. Evaluation by the nuclear data library adjustment confirmed that the analyses results of the BFS-58-1-I1 core have no significant inconsistency with JUPITER experimental analyses results. Those results are quite important for starting BFS-62 cores, which will be analyzed in the framework of supporting program for Russian ...