Validation of Serpent-SUBCHANFLOW-TRANSURANUS pin-by-pin burnup calculations using experimental data from the Temelín II VVER-1000 reactor

Manuel García*, Radim Vočka, Riku Tuominen, Andre Gommlich, Jaakko Leppänen, Ville Valtavirta, Uwe Imke, Diego Ferraro, Paul Van Uffelen, Lukáš Milisdörfer, Victor Sanchez-Espinoza

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This work deals with the validation of a high-fidelity multiphysics system coupling the Serpent 2 Monte Carlo neutron transport code with SUBCHANFLOW, a subchannel thermalhydraulics code, and TRANSURANUS, a fuel-performance analysis code. The results for a full-core pin-by-pin burnup calculation for the ninth operating cycle of the Temelín II VVER-1000 plant, which starts from a fresh core, are presented and assessed using experimental data. A good agreement is found comparing the critical boron concentration and a set of pin-level neutron flux profiles against measurements. In addition, the calculated axial and radial power distributions match closely the values reported by the core monitoring system. To demonstrate the modeling capabilities of the three-code coupling, pin-level neutronic, thermalhydraulic and thermomechanic results are shown as well. These studies are encompassed in the final phase of the EU Horizon 2020 McSAFE project, during which the Serpent-SUBCHANFLOW-TRANSURANUS system was developed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3133-3150
JournalNuclear Engineering and Technology
Volume53
Issue number10
Early online date8 May 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2021
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This work was done within the McSAFE project which is receiving funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018 under grant agreement No 755097. This work was performed on the computational resource ForHLR II funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg and DFG (“Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”) .

Keywords

  • Fuel-performance analysis
  • High-fidelity multiphysics
  • Monte Carlo neutron transport
  • Pin-level burnup
  • Subchannel thermalhydraulics
  • VVER-1000

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