EPJ Nuclear Sciences & Technologies (Jan 2021)

NMB4.0: development of integrated nuclear fuel cycle simulator from the front to back-end

  • Okamura Tomohiro,
  • Katano Ryota,
  • Oizumi Akito,
  • Nishihara Kenji,
  • Nakase Masahiko,
  • Asano Hidekazu,
  • Takeshita Kenji

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2021019
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7
p. 19

Abstract

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Nuclear Material Balance code version 4.0 (NMB4.0) has been developed through collaborative R&D between TokyoTech&JAEA. Conventional nuclear fuel cycle simulation codes mainly analyze actinides and are specialized for front-end mass balance analysis. However, quantitative back-end simulation has recently become necessary for considering R&D strategies and sustainable nuclear energy utilization. Therefore, NMB4.0 was developed to realize the integrated nuclear fuel cycle simulation from front- to back-end. There are three technical features in NMB4.0: 179 nuclides are tracked, more than any other code, throughout the nuclear fuel cycle; the Okamura explicit method is implemented, which contributes to reducing the numerical cost while maintaining the accuracy of depletion calculations on nuclides with a shorter half-life; and flexibility of back-end simulation is achieved. The main objective of this paper is to show the newly developed functions, made for integrated back-end simulation, and verify NMB4.0 through a benchmark study to show the computational performance.