DOE OSTI2013
Recognition of the key role physics plays in innovative reactor design was already made clear by E. Wigner in his warning: “It has been a bit forgotten that in all really creative thinking in reactor design, a working knowledge of nuclear reaction theory is required.” More recently, extensive sensitivity and uncertainty studies and the availability of new covariance data have allowed preliminary quantification of the impact of current nuclear data uncertainties on the design parameters of the Generation-IV systems (both fast neutron and thermal neutron systems). Similar quantifications can be done for the parameters that characterize the associated innovative fuel cycle to insure sustainability, waste minimization and drastic reduction of the proliferation risks. In parallel, there has been a growing and very significant trend to develop a new generation of reactor simulation tools that rely more and more on first principles. It is safe to say that the next generation of innovative nuclear systems will be assessed with a completely new set of tools, more science based, in sharp contrast with what has been done in the past. However, the studies mentioned above point out that the present uncertainties in nuclear data should be significantly reduced in order to fully benefit from advances in modeling and simulation. Only a parallel effort in advanced simulation and nuclear data improvement will be able to provide designers with more general and well validated calculational tools to meet new design target accuracies. One further consideration related to the development of new advanced simulation tools is that there should be a more explicit link with the more fundamental physics parameters underlying the models used to describe cross sections that would avoid the use of processed, application-oriented, data (like multigroup cross sections). Finally, current methodologies for reducing uncertainties coming from nuclear data, which rely on the use of integral experiment information to perform statistical multigroup (i.e., energy spectrum weighted) cross section data assimilation should evolve to embrace new frontiers in advanced simulation. One of the drawbacks of the classical methodologies is related to the energy group structure and the type of neutron energy spectrum that are adopted in the assimilation (adjustment). In fact, after such an adjustment is performed, neutronic designers are then tied to this energy group structure and neutron energy spectrum when carrying out further calculations. In reality, this can be quite a limiting factor in view of the complex spectral issues that are involved in most reactor physics. This work combines novel, but proven, methodologies for overcoming these limitations. In fact, this is the first attempt to build up a link between the wealth of precise integral experiments and a basic theory of nuclear reactions. Essential ingredients of such a procedure, denominated here as assimilation, are covariances for model parameters and sensitivity matrices. The latter provide direct link between reaction theory and integral experiments. The result is a consistent data assimilation performed directly on the basic nuclear physics parameters that are being used in a variety of nuclear reaction mechanisms. The resulting improvement in their performance will consequently reduce related uncertainties when employed in reactor calculations. By using integral reactor physics experiments (meter scale), information is propagated back to the nuclear physics level (femtometers) covering a range of more than 13 orders of magnitude. The assimilation procedure should result in more accurate and more reliable evaluated data files of universal validity rather than tailored to a particular application. In fact, after data assimilation is carried out, the basic nuclear data file can be processed by a dedicated code into any energy group structure that the reactor physicist deems to be useful. On the other hand, integral experiments used in the assimilation should provide additional, possibly quite strict, constraints on the parameters entering nuclear reaction modeling, as well as the reaction models themselves. This report describes three years of combined research by Brookhaben National Lab (BNL) and Idaho National Lab (INL) on establishing viable assimilation methodology. The emphasis of this paper is on the empire code calculations to prepare the priors, sensitivity matrices and covariances for the model parameters. For completeness, we also include a short summary of the assimilation results produced by INL and reported earlier in annual reports [6], [7], [8].
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗