Neutronic Analysis of the European Sodium Fast Reactor: Part I—Fresh Core Results

Emil Fridman (1) , Francisco Álvarez Velarde (2) , Pablo Romojaro Otero (2) , Haileyesus Tsige-Tamirat (3) , Antonio Jiménez Carrascosa (4) , Nuria García Herranz (4) , Franck Bernard (5) , Robert Gregg (6) , Una Davies (7) , Jiri Krepel (8) , Simone Massara (9) , Sandra Poumerouly (9) , Enrico Girardi (9) , Konstantin Mikityuk (8)

1 HZDR - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
2 CIEMAT - Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
3 JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Petten]
4 UPM - Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
5 IRSN/PSN-RES/SNC/LN - Laboratoire de Neutronique
6 National Nuclear Laboratory
7 Department of Engineering [Cambridge]
8 PSI - Paul Scherrer Institute
9 EDF R&D - EDF R&D

In the framework of the Horizon 2020 project ESFR-SMART (2017-2021), the European Sodium Fast Reactor (ESFR) core was updated through a safety-related modification and optimization of the core design from the earlier FP7 CP-ESFR project (2009-2013). This study is dedicated to neutronic analyses of the improved ESFR core design. The conducted work is reported in two parts. Part I deals with the evaluation of the safety-related neutronic parameters of the fresh Beginning-of-Life (BOL) core carried out by 8 organizations using both continuous energy Monte Carlo and deterministic computer codes. In addition to the neutronics characterization of the core, a special emphasis was put on the calibration and verification of the computational tools involved in the analyses. Part II is devoted to once-through and realistic batch-wise burnup calculations aiming at the establishing of the equilibrium core state, which will later serve as a basis for detailed safety analyses.

Mots clés: Design; Computers; Equilibrium (Physics); Optimization; Modeling; Safety; Scram; Sodium; Sodium fast reactors; Temperature; Fuels

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Emil Fridman, Francisco Álvarez Velarde, Pablo Romojaro Otero, Haileyesus Tsige-Tamirat, Antonio Jiménez Carrascosa, et al.. Neutronic Analysis of the European Sodium Fast Reactor: Part I—Fresh Core Results. Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, 2021, 8 (1), pp.11301. ⟨10.1115/1.4048905⟩. ⟨irsn-04122162v3⟩