Investigation of the impact of thermal neutron scattering cross sections and angular distributions on criticality calculations

IF 1.9 3区工程技术 Q1 NUCLEAR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Annals of Nuclear Energy Pub Date : 2024-08-14 DOI:10.1016/j.anucene.2024.110851

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Abstract

The present study focuses on the influence of neutron scattering cross section and angular distribution when employing the Thermal Scattering Law (TSL) on criticality calculation benchmarks, in comparison with the Free Gas Model (FGM). The benchmarks sensitive to beryllium oxide (HMT-027) and graphite (HMT-026) as well as some simplified Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) benchmarks are interpreted using the OpenMC code to assess the influence of TSL. The results indicate that the influence of TSL mainly attributes to both the total scattering cross section and the secondary angular distribution characterized by the average cosine of the scattering angle. The HMT-027 and HMT-026 series benchmarks respectively show the more significant influence of one of these two effects. For the simplified PWR benchmark, employing the TSL of H in H₂O weakens the neutron moderation effect, which results in a reduction of around 100 pcm in the calculated $k_{eff}$ , while the combined influence of cross section and secondary angular distribution is negligible for the TSL of UO₂ fuel.

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热中子散射截面和角度分布对临界计算影响的研究

本研究的重点是在采用热散射定律（TSL）与自由气体模型（FGM）进行比较时，中子散射截面和角度分布对临界计算基准的影响。使用 OpenMC 代码解释了对氧化铍（HMT-027）和石墨（HMT-026）敏感的基准以及一些简化的压水堆（PWR）基准，以评估 TSL 的影响。结果表明，TSL 主要影响总散射截面和以散射角平均余弦为特征的二次角分布。HMT-027 和 HMT-026 系列基准分别显示了这两种效应中更重要的一种影响。对于简化压水堆基准，采用 H2O 中 H 的 TSL 会减弱中子慢化效应，从而使计算的 keff 降低约 100 pcm，而对于 UO2 燃料的 TSL，截面和二次角分布的综合影响可以忽略不计。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Annals of Nuclear Energy 工程技术-核科学技术

CiteScore

4.30

自引率

21.10%

发文量

632

审稿时长

7.3 months

期刊介绍： Annals of Nuclear Energy provides an international medium for the communication of original research, ideas and developments in all areas of the field of nuclear energy science and technology. Its scope embraces nuclear fuel reserves, fuel cycles and cost, materials, processing, system and component technology (fission only), design and optimization, direct conversion of nuclear energy sources, environmental control, reactor physics, heat transfer and fluid dynamics, structural analysis, fuel management, future developments, nuclear fuel and safety, nuclear aerosol, neutron physics, computer technology (both software and hardware), risk assessment, radioactive waste disposal and reactor thermal hydraulics. Papers submitted to Annals need to demonstrate a clear link to nuclear power generation/nuclear engineering. Papers which deal with pure nuclear physics, pure health physics, imaging, or attenuation and shielding properties of concretes and various geological materials are not within the scope of the journal. Also, papers that deal with policy or economics are not within the scope of the journal.