Influence of nuclear data library on neutronics benchmark of China experimental fast reactor start-up tests

Abstract

Nuclear data is the basis of reactor physics analysis. This paper aim at studying the influence of major evaluated nuclear data libraries, CENDL-3.2, ENDF/B-VIII.0, JEFF-3.3, and JENDL-4.0u, on the neutronics modelling of CEFR start-up tests. Results show these four libraries have a good performance and consistency in the modelling CEFR start-up tests. The JEFF-3.3 results exhibit only an 8 pcm keff difference with the measurement. The difference in criticality is decomposed by nuclide, which shows the large overestimation of CENDL-3.2 is mainly from the cross-section of 52Cr. Except for few cases, the calculation results are within 1σ of measurement uncertainty in control rod worth, sodium void reactivity, temperature reactivity, and subassembly swap reactivity. In the evaluation of axial and radial reaction distribution, there are about 65% of relative errors that are less than 5% and 82% of relative errors that are less than 10%.

Keywords

• Neutronics
• CEFR
• Start-up tests
• Nuclear data library
• OpenMC