몬테칼로 방법을 이용한 PBMR-400MWth 노심 연소도 해석 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the burnup characteristics of 400MWth PBMR using Monte Carlo method. In the world, the deterministic method is widely used to model such that system but it still has a disadvantage which is not flexible in simulating the burnup cycle. Although this method applies some techniques to increase the accuracy of calculation results but it is necessary to model this system by a suitable computer code that can verify and validate the results of the deterministic method. A method which uses a Monte Carlo technique for simulating the burnup cycle was performed. A reactor physics computer code used in this method is MONTEBURN 2.0 which accurately and efficiently computes the neutronic and material properties of the fuel cycle. MONTEBURN is a fully automated tool that links the MCNP Monte Carlo transport code with a radioactive decay and burnup code ORIGEN. In this model, the calculations are based on a detailed core modeling using MCNP. The fuel pebble is thoroughly modeled by introducing unit cell modeling for the graphite matrix and fuel kernels in the pebble. For the burnup model, a start-up core was studied with considering the movement of pebbles. By shifting down one layer at each discrete time step and inserting fresh fuel from the top, this cyclic calculation is continued until equilibrium burnup cycle is achieved. In this study, the time dependence of multiplication factor keff, the spatial dependence of flux profile, power distribution, burnup, and inventory of isotopes in the start up process are analyzed. The results will provide the basis data of the burnup process and be also utilized as the verified data to validate a computer code for PBMR core analysis which will be developed in near future.