Monte Carlo burnup and its uncertainty propagation analyses for VERA depletion benchmarks by McCARD

• Main Authors: Ho Jin Park, Dong Hyuk Lee, Byoung Kyu Jeon, Hyung Jin Shim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2018-10-01
• Series: Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1738573318301335

For an efficient Monte Carlo (MC) burnup analysis, an accurate high-order depletion scheme to consider the nonlinear flux variation in a coarse burnup-step interval is crucial accompanied with an accurate depletion equation solver. In a Seoul National University MC code, McCARD, the high-order depletion schemes of the quadratic depletion method (QDM) and the linear extrapolation/quadratic interpolation (LEQI) method and a depletion equation solver by the Chebyshev rational approximation method (CRAM) have been newly implemented in addition to the existing constant extrapolation/backward extrapolation (CEBE) method using the matrix exponential method (MEM) solver with substeps. In this paper, the quadratic extrapolation/quadratic interpolation (QEQI) method is proposed as a new high-order depletion scheme. In order to examine the effectiveness of the newly-implemented depletion modules in McCARD, four problems in the VERA depletion benchmarks are solved by CEBE/MEM, CEBE/CRAM, LEQI/MEM, QEQI/MEM, and QDM for gadolinium isotopes. From the comparisons, it is shown that the QEQI/MEM predicts kinf's most accurately among the test cases. In addition, statistical uncertainty propagation analyses for a VERA pin cell problem are conducted by the sensitivity and uncertainty and the stochastic sampling methods. Keywords: Monte Carlo burnup analysis, McCARD, VERA depletion benchmark, Uncertainty propagation, Quadratic extrapolation and quadratic interpolation method