BENCHMARK EVALUATION OF REACTIVITY EFFECTS AND REACTIVITY COEFFICIENTS IN THE MOLTEN SALT REACTOR EXPERIMENT

University of California, Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering, Berkeley CA 94720-1730

danshen.echo@berkeley.edu
maxfratoni@berkeley.edu

Published online: 22 February 2021

Abstract

A set of benchmarks based on the experimental data from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) is being compiled as part of International Reactor Physics Experiments Evaluation Reactor Physics Experiments Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). The initial benchmark that will be available in the 2019 edition of the IRPhEP handbook covers the first zero-power criticality experiment. Follow up benchmarks are under development based on the series of control rod calibration experiments performed at the MSRE, which consisted in progressive addition of a small amount (85g) of ²³⁵U in the salt followed by the insertion of the control rods acts to compensate for the excess reactivity insertion. Multiple reactivity effects and coefficients measurements are included in the benchmark: differential worth of a control rod, reactivity equivalent of ²³⁵U addition, control rod bank worth, reactivity effect of fuel circulation, isothermal temperature coefficient and fuel temperature coefficient. An uncertainty of 2% is attributed to the reported reactivity measurements from experimenters and it was believed that the uncertainty of reactor period measurement contributed the most of the experimental uncertainty. An additional 2% uncertainty was added to all reactivity measurements to represent the uncertainty for the correction factor applied to pull all the measurements on the same uranium concentration and this uncertainty was reasonably inferred by evaluating this factor on the MSRE benchmark model. The calculated reactivity equivalent of ²³⁵U additions (0.2228±0.0014, represented as the change of reactivity over the relative change of ²³⁵U mass in loop) matches well with the experiment value (0.223±0.006). Most of other calculations, including the control rod bank worth, reactivity effects of fuel circulation and isothermal and fuel temperature coefficients fall within one standard deviation from the experimental values as well.