THE TWO-STEP APPROACH FOR WHOLE-CORE RESONANCE SELF-SHIELDING CALCULATION

Abstract

A two-step approach is proposed to accomplish high-fidelity whole-core resonance self-shielding calculation. Direct slowing-down equation solving based on the pin-cell scale is performed as the first step to simulate different operating conditions of the reactor. Resonance database is fitted using the results from the pin-cell calculation. Several techniques are used in the generation of the resonance database to estimate multiple types of resonance effects. The second step is the calculation of practical whole-core problem using the resonance database obtained from the first step. The transport solver is embedded both at the first step and the second step to establish the equivalence relationship between the fuel rod in the practical problem and the pin-cell at the first step. The numerical results show that the new approach have capability to perform high-fidelity resonance calculations for practical problem.

Keywords

• resonance self-shielding
• two-step approach
• high-fidelity
• whole-core