In the deep burn research of Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR), it is desired to make an accurate estimation of absorption cross sections and absorption rates in burnable poison (BP) pins. However, in traditional methods, multi-group cross sections are generated from single bundle calculations with specular reflection boundary condition, in which the energy spectral effect in the core environment is not taken into account. This approximation introduces errors to the absorption cross sections especially for BPs neighboring reflectors and control rods.
In order to correct the BP absorption cross sections in whole core diffusion calculations, energy spectrum reconstruction (ESR) methods have been developed to reconstruct the fine group spectrum (and in-core continuous energy spectrum). Then, using the reconstructed spectrum as boundary condition, a BP pin cell local transport calculation serves an imbedded module within the whole core diffusion code to iteratively correct the BP absorption cross sections for improved results.
The ESR methods were tested in a 2D prismatic High Temperature Reactor (HTR) problem. The reconstructed fine-group spectra have shown good agreement with the reference spectra. Comparing with the cross sections calculated by single block calculation with specular reflection boundary conditions, the BP absorption cross sections are effectively improved by ESR methods. A preliminary study was also performed to extend the ESR methods to a 2D Pebble Bed Reactor (PBR) problem. The results demonstrate that the ESR can reproduce the energy spectra on the fuel-outer reflector interface accurately.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/41195 |
| Date | 06 July 2011 |
| Creators | Zhang, Zhan |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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