Verification of NECP-Bamboo2.0 with Plate-Fuel-Type Research Reactors

The strong heterogeneity and anisotropic effect in plate-fuel-type research reactor cores make the traditional two-step deterministic method based on the assembly homogenization challenging to obtain sufficiently accurate results.Meanwhile, the cost of the Monte Carlo code is unacceptable especially for depletion or transient simulation.Thus, the pin-by-pin two-step calculation method has been extensively studied as an eclectic solution.Among those, Nuclear Engineering Computational Physics Lab (NECP) in Xi'an Jiaotong University has developed the pin-by-pin code system NECP-Bamboo2.0.It has been validated by about one hundred cycles of commercial PWRs including both Gen II and Gen III reactors, such as Chinese Nuclear Power CNP300, France Framatome M310, USA Westinghouse AP1000, etc.The computed results of these commercial PWR-core are in good agreement with the measurement or the results derived from the high-fidelity codes.However, the physical characteristics of plate-type fuel research reactors are different with the commercial PWRs.In addition, the modeling of the plate-type fuel reactors is difficult and complex, and the verification of NECP-Bamboo 2.0 on this type of reactors is limited.Therefore, this paper reports corresponding verification and validation performed by NECP-Bamboo 2.0 based on 2D CARR problem, 3D MTR problem and 3D JRR-3M problem.Numerical results indicate that NECP-Bamboo2.0 is qualified to calculate the plate-type fuel reactors with strong heterogeneity.