Benchmark Calculations of the Saxton Plutonium Program Critical Experiments

The Saxton critical experiments, which used mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel of 6.6 wt% PuO 2 in natural UO 2 and UO 2 fuel of 5.74 wt% 235 U, are analyzed with MCNP-4B and continuous-energy cross-section libraries ENDF/B-V and ENDF/B-VI. An excellent agreement of calculated and experimental effective multipl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nuclear technology 1999-09, Vol.127 (3), p.315-331
Main Authors: Abdurrahman, Naeem M., Radulescu, Georgeta, Carron, Igor
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Computer simulation
Control rods
Energy
Energy. Thermal use of fuels
Exact sciences and technology
Fission nuclear power plants
Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy
Mixed oxide fuels
Pressurized water reactors
Reactor cores
Uranium dioxide
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Summary:The Saxton critical experiments, which used mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel of 6.6 wt% PuO 2 in natural UO 2 and UO 2 fuel of 5.74 wt% 235 U, are analyzed with MCNP-4B and continuous-energy cross-section libraries ENDF/B-V and ENDF/B-VI. An excellent agreement of calculated and experimental effective multiplication factors for the entire set of 1.3208-cm MOX lattices and 1.4224-cm MOX and UO 2 lattices was obtained. The analysis of criticality calculations for the five different lattice pitches show a bias with lattice pitch, which led to an increase of ~0.8% when doubling the lattice pitch. Good agreement between calculated and measured data was obtained for some of the relative power distribution experiments for MOX single-region cores and MOX/UO 2 multiregion cores; however, for others the agreement was less satisfactory. No significant difference in the results for relative power with the two libraries was observed.
ISSN:0029-5450
1943-7471
DOI:10.13182/NT99-A3004