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Kuroishi, Takeshi; Nomura, Yasushi
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 40(6), p.433 - 440, 2003/06
Times Cited Count:2 Percentile:18.89(Nuclear Science & Technology)Effective source acceleration method is studied in criticality safety analysis for realistic spent fuel transport cask. Various axial burnup profiles based on in-core flux measurements are proposed in the OECD/NEA/BUC benchmark Phase II-C. In some cases, calculations by ordinary Monte Carlo method show very slow convergence of fission source distribution, and unacceptably large skipped cycles are needed. The matrix eigenvector calculation that has been developed and incorporated in the ordinary Monte Carlo calculation to improve the slow convergence is applied to the benchmark. The efficiency of this method depends on the precision of matrix elements. In a certain stage of insufficient convergence of fission source distribution, especially for this benchmark of very slow convergence, more acceleration procedure causes anomalous results because of large statistical fluctuations of matrix elements corresponding to low source levels. Therefore, we propose effective source acceleration method with less calculation time than increasing histories for the estimation of matrix elements.
Kuroishi, Takeshi; Hoang, A.; Nomura, Yasushi; Okuno, Hiroshi
JAERI-Tech 2003-021, 60 Pages, 2003/03
The reactivity effect of the asymmetry of axial burnup profile is studied for PWR spent fuel transport cask proposed in OECD/NEA Phase II-C benchmark. The axial burnup profiles are based on in-core flux measurements. Criticality calculations are performed with the continuous energy Monte Carlo code MCNP-4B2 and the nuclear data library JENDL-3.2. Calculations are carried out not only for cases in the benchmark but also for symmetric burnup cases. Both actinide-only approach and actinide plus fission product approach is considered. The end effect is more sensitive to higher burnup asymmetry. The axial fission distribution becomes strongly asymmetric as its peak shifts toward the fuel top end. The peak of fission distribution gets higher with the increase of either the burnup asymmetry or the assembly-averaged burnup. The conservatism of uniform axial burnup assumption for the actinide-only approach is estimated quantitatively in comparison with the keff result calculated with experiment-based strongest asymmetric axial burnup profile for the actinide plus fission product approach.