Generation of a Broad-Group HTGR Library for Use with SCALE (NUREG/CR-7106, ORNL/TM-2011/298)

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: August 2011
Date Published: June 2012

Prepared by:
R.J. Ellis, D.J. Lee*, D. Wiarda, M.L. Williams, U. Mertyurek

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Managed by UT-Battele, LLC
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6170

*Formerly of Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Don Algama, NRC Project Manager

NRC Job Code N6841

Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

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Abstract

With current and ongoing interest in high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) anticipates the need for nuclear data libraries appropriate for use in applications for modeling, assessing, and analyzing HTGR reactor physics and operating behavior. The objective of this work was to develop a broad-group library suitable for production analyses with SCALE for HTGR applications. Several interim libraries were generated from SCALE fine-group 238- and 999-group libraries, and the final broad-group library was created from Evaluated Nuclear Data File/B Version ENDF/B-VII Release 0 cross-section evaluations using new ORNL methodologies with AMPX, SCALE, and other codes. Furthermore, intermediate resonance (IR) methods were applied to the HTGR broadgroup library, and lambda factors and f-factors were incorporated into the library’s nuclear data files. A new version of the SCALE BONAMI module named BONAMI-IR was developed to process the IR data in the new library and, thus, eliminate the need for the CENTRM/PMC modules for resonance selfshielding. This report documents the development of the HTGR broad-group nuclear data library and the results of test and benchmark calculations using the new library with SCALE. The 81-group library is shown to model HTGR cases with similar accuracy to the SCALE 238-group library but with significantly faster computational times due to the reduced number of energy groups and the use of BONAMI-IR instead of BONAMI/CENTRM/PMC for resonance self-shielding calculations.