INTRODUCTION OF OSCAR-4 AT THE HIGH FLUX REACTOR (PETTEN)

Nuclear Research and consultancy Group P.O. Box 25, 1755 ZG, Petten, The Netherlands

erasmus@nrg.eu
hendriks@nrg.eu
hogenbirk@nrg.eu
vandermarck@nrg.eu
asquith@nrg.eu

Published online: 22 February 2021

Abstract

Since 2005 the nodal diffusion based code system, OSCAR-3, was used for reactor support calculations of operational cycles of the High Flux Reactor in Petten, The Netherlands. OSCAR uses a two-step deterministic calculation, in which homogenized cross sections are generated in lattice environments using neutron transport simulations, and then passed to a nodal diffusion core simulator to model the full reactor. Limitations in OSCAR-3 led to the need for improved modelling capabilities and better physics models for components present in the reactor core. OSCAR-4 offers improvements over OSCAR-3 in its approach to homogenization, and the new version of the diffusion core simulator allows for better modelling of movable components such as control rods. Fuel inventories calculated using OSCAR-4 can also easily be exported to MCNP, which allows the calculation of individual plate powers and local reaction rates amongst others. For these reasons OSCAR-4 is currently being introduced as a core support tool at the High Flux Reactor. In this work the steps that were followed to validate the reactor models are presented, and include results of validation calculations from both OSCAR-4 and MCNP6 over multiple reactor cycles. In addition differences in cross section library evaluations and their impact on the results are presented for the MCNP model.