Criticality Safety Analysis of Nuclear-Cycle Facilities for Weapons-Grade Plutonium

108 Pages·2001·0.72 MB·English

ORNL/TM-2001/262
Investigations and
Recommendations on the
Use of Existing Experiments
in Criticality Safety Analysis
of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities
for Weapons-Grade Plutonium
B. T. Rearden
K. R. Elam
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ORNL/TM-2001/262
Nuclear ScienceandTechnologyDivision(94)
Investigations and Recommendations on the Use of Existing
Experiments in Criticality Safety Analysis of Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Facilities for Weapons-Grade Plutonium
B. T. Rearden and K. R. Elam
Oak Ridge NationalLaboratory,
PO Box2008,
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6370
Date Published: June 2002
Prepared bythe
OAKRIDGE NATIONALLABORATORY
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831
managed and operated by
UT-Battelle, LLC
for the
U.S. DEPARTMENT OFENERGY
under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725

CONTENTS
Page
LIST OFFIGURES......................................................................................................................v
LIST OFTABLES.....................................................................................................................vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...........................................................................................................ix
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.........................................................................................................xi
1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................1
2. SENSITIVITY AND UNCERTAINTY BASED CRITICALITY VALIDATION
TECHNIQUES.....................................................................................................................3
2.1. SENSITIVITY THEORY...........................................................................................3
2.2. SENSITIVITY-BASED INTEGRALPARAMETERS...............................................5
2.3. UNCERTAINTY-BASED INTEGRALPARAMETERS............................................7
2.4. AREAOF APPLICABILITY USING INTEGRALPARAMETER TECHNIQUES...9
2.5. SUMMARY OFS/U ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES....................................................10
3. PROTOTYPICALSENSITIVITY AND UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS CODES FOR
CRITICALITY SAFETY WITH THESCALE CODE SYSTEM........................................13
3.1. SEN1 SEQUENCE...................................................................................................13
3.2. SEN3 SEQUENCE...................................................................................................13
3.3. SENSITIVITY TO RESONANCE-SHIELDED MULTIGROUP
CROSS SECTIONS..................................................................................................14
3.4. SENSITIVITY DATA..............................................................................................14
3.5. CANDE ..........................................................................................................14
4. SAMPLE DESIGN APPLICATIONS FOR THE MIXED-OXIDE FUELFABRICATION
FACILITY..........................................................................................................................15
5. DEVELOPMENT OFCRITICALEXPERIMENTDATABASE........................................19
5.1. PLUTONIUM SYSTEMS..........................................................................................19
5.1.1. PlutoniumMetalSystems..............................................................................19
5.1.2. PlutoniumOxide Systems..............................................................................21
5.2. MIXED PLUTONIUM AND URANIUM SYSTEMS................................................21
5.2.1. Mixed Plutoniumand UraniumSolutionSystems..........................................21
5.2.2. Mixed Plutoniumand Uranium FuelPin Lattices...........................................22
5.2.3. Mixed Plutoniumand UraniumSolid Systems...............................................23
5.2.4. Mixed Plutoniumand UraniumMetalSystem...............................................24
5.3. LOW-ENRICHED URANIUM OXIDE SYSTEMS...................................................24
6. RESULTS...........................................................................................................................25
6.1. AOA3 – PUO POWDERS........................................................................................25
2
iii
CONTENTS (continued)
Page
6.2. AOA4 – MOX POWDERS........................................................................................32
6.2.1. Nuclide-Reaction-Specific Analysis ofAOA4-2...........................................45
6.2.2. Analysis ofMass Variations for AOA4-4.....................................................48
6.2.3. IdentificationofAdditionalBenchmarks for 238U..........................................53
7. CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................................55
8. REFERENCES...................................................................................................................57
APPENDIX A— COMPLETENESSPARAMETER................................................................61
APPENDIX B — INTEGRALVALUES...................................................................................65
iv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Energy-dependent-sensitivityprofiles for 239Pu fissionfor AOA4-2, Experiment 4 from
Table 5 ofNSE55,and Experiment 1 fromTable 4ofNSE55.............................................47
2. Energy-dependent-sensitivityprofiles for 239Pufission for AOA4-2 and AOA4-4.............49
3. Energy-dependent-sensitivityprofiles for 239Pu fissionfor varying mass cases of
AOA4-4 and benchmark experiment PU-29-1....................................................................51
4. Energy-dependent-sensitivityprofiles for 238U capture for varying mass cases of
AOA4-4 and benchmark experiment PU-29-1....................................................................52
5. Energy-dependent-sensitivityprofiles for 238U capture for AOA4-4, AOA4-4-P8,
PU-29-1 and LEU-COMP-THERM-049-01........................................................................54
v
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. SummaryofS/U parameters...............................................................................................11
2. Proposed designapplicationspecification for AOA 3 (PuO powders)ofMFFF.................17
2
3. Proposed designapplicationspecification for AOA 4 (MOX powders)ofMFFF................18
4. Summarydescriptionofbenchmark experiments................................................................20
5. Calculated characteristics ofdesignsystems fromAOA3...................................................25
6. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA3-1...................................27
k
7. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA3-2...................................28
k
8. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA3-3...................................30
k
9. Calculated characteristics ofdesignsystems fromAOA4...................................................32
10. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA4-1...................................34
k
11. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA4-2...................................36
k
12. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA4-3...................................38
k
13. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.7 for AOA4-4...................................40
k
14. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.7 for AOA4-4-P163..........................41
k
15. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA4-4-P40............................42
k
16. Experimentalconfigurations withc coefficients ≥ 0.8 for AOA4-4-P8.............................43
k
17. Properties ofsystems considered for nuclide-reaction-specific analysis ofAOA4-2...........45
18. Nuclide-reaction-specific-sensitivitydata for AOA4-2 withT(c ) values
k
for benchmarks NSE55T4-01 and NSE55T5-04.................................................................46
19. Nuclide-reaction-specific-sensitivitydata for the various masses analyzed for
AOA4-4 withT(c ) values for benchmark PU-29-1............................................................50
k
vii
LIST OF TABLES (continued)
Table Page
A.1. Completeness parameter (R) for eachdesignsystemusing the 318-benchmark-
experiment set..................................................................................................................64
B.1 Tabulated c values and calculated parameters for designsystems and benchmark
k
experiments......................................................................................................................67
B.2 Tabulated E values and calculated parameters for designsystems and benchmark
sum
experiments......................................................................................................................79
viii