Calculations of fission rate distribution in the core of VVER-1000 mock-up on the LR-0 reactor using alternative methods and comparison with results of measurements
21st Symposium of AER on VVER Reactor Physics and Reactor Safety (2011, Dresden, Germany)
Reactor physics experiments and code validation
Abstract
General review of experimental and calculation researches on VVER-440 and VVER-1000
mock-ups on the reactor LR-0 was introduced on the 20th Symposium AER 1.
The experimental core fission rate distribution was obtained by means of gamma-scanning
of the fuel pins – 140La single peak (1596 keV) measurements and wide energy range
(approximately 600-900 keV) measurements. Altogether from 260 to 500 fuel pins were
scanned in different experiments. The measurements were arranged in the middle of the fuel
(the active part of pin).
Pin-to-pin calculations of the VVER-1000 mock-up core fission rate distribution were
performed with several codes: Monte Carlo codes MCU-REA/2 and MCNPX with different
nuclear data libraries, diffusion code RADAR (63 energy groups library) and code SVL based on
Surface Harmonics Method (69 energy groups). Calculated data are compared with experimental
ones.
The obtained results allow developing the benchmark for core calculations methodologies,
evaluating and validating source reliability for the out-of-core (inside and outside pressure
vessel) neutron transport calculations.
Key words: SVL, surface harmonics method, VVER, LR-0