NEUTRONIC MODELING OF A FAST CORE WITH MODERATING MATERIALS USING APOLLO3R CODE

¹ CEA/Cadarache DEN/DER, 13108 Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France
² CEA/DAM DIF/DPTA/SPN, Bruyeres-le-Chatel 91297 Arpajon, France

maciej.zajaczkowski@cea.fr

Published online: 22 February 2021

Abstract

In order to improve passive safety of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has proposed a new core design called CADOR - an SFR core with enhanced Doppler reactivity feedback. One of its most important design features is the introduction of solid moderating materials inside each fuel assemblies to slightly decrease the average neutron energy. The article focuses on development and validation of a neutronics calculation scheme able to produce accurate results in case of CADOR and other fast cores with moderating materials. The study uses two different fuel assembly models moderated by metallic beryllium and zirconium hydride (ZrH₂) respectively The study includes discussion of neutron scattering treatment and different ways of spatial homogenization and energy condensations. The results indicate that the accurate scattering treatment leads to much better estimation of Doppler constant, especially in case of ZrH₂ moderated core. By using combined deterministic-Monte Carlo calculation scheme we are able to quantify the biases on global reactivity, reactivity feedbacks and control rod worth. We demonstrate that spatial homogenization plays a more important role in case of moderated CADOR assemblies and thus preserving certain level of heterogeneity within fuel assemblies can lower the calculation bias significantly.