Neutron flux spectra comparison obtained with Serpent and SCALE for VVER-1000
29th Symposium of AER on VVER Reactor Physics and Reactor Safety (2019, Energoland, Mochovce NPP, Slovakia)
fuel management issues
Abstract
Different calculational tools are used in GRS to perform neutronics analyses. In particular, the neutronics a VVER-1000 core based on the Kalinin-3 benchmark specifications was analysed with DYN3D and PARCS, with the sets of few-group macroscopic cross-sections (XS) generated with SCALE and Serpent, respectively. Although the problem statements and extent of the analyses were different, it is desirable to have possibility to compare the common intermediate step – the generated XS. This is important to provide additional insight to the intermediate results and to identify inconsistencies in the underlying models.
The direct quantitative comparison of XS, as generated with SCALE and Serpent is not possible, since the prepared XS have different energy group structure and were prepared for different sets of parameters. However, both codes provide information about the flux spectra in the output files. The impact to the neutron spectrum of a parameter should have at least qualitatively the same behavior. This work provides the comparison of the changes to the neutron flux introduced by FA type (U enrichment and presence of burnable absorber), fuel temperature, moderator density and boron concentration, as predicted with Serpent and SCALE.