• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.1240-1249
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• 2017

An essential component of the neutron transport solver is the resonance self-shielding calculation used to determine equivalence cross sections. The neutron transport code, MPACT, is currently using the subgroup self-shielding method, in which the method of characteristics (MOC) is used to solve purely absorbing fixed-source problems. Recent efforts incorporating multigroup kernels to the MOC solvers in MPACT have reduced runtime by roughly $2{\times}$. Applying the same concepts for self-shielding and developing a novel lumped parameter approach to MOC, substantial improvements have also been made to the self-shielding computational efficiency without sacrificing any accuracy. These new multigroup and lumped parameter capabilities have been demonstrated on two test cases: (1) a single lattice with quarter symmetry known as VERA (Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications) Progression Problem 2a and (2) a two-dimensional quarter-core slice known as Problem 5a-2D. From these cases, self-shielding computational time was reduced by roughly $3-4{\times}$, with a corresponding 15-20% increase in overall memory burden. An azimuthal angle sensitivity study also shows that only half as many angles are needed, yielding an additional speedup of $2{\times}$. In total, the improvements yield roughly a $7-8{\times}$ speedup. Given these performance benefits, these approaches have been adopted as the default in MPACT.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.1287-1300
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• 2017

Based on the observation that ignoring the angle dependency of multigroup resonance cross sections within a fuel pellet would result in nontrivial underestimation of the spatial self-shielding of flux, a parametrized spectral superhomogenization (SPH) factor library (PSSL) method is developed as a practical means of resolving the problem. Region-wise spectral SPH factors are calculated by the normal and transport corrected SPH iterations after ultrafine group slowing down calculations over various light water reactor pin-cell configurations. The parametrization is done with fuel temperature, U-238 number density, fuel radius, moderator source represented by ${\Sigma}_{mod}V_{mod}$, and the number density ratio of resonance nuclides to that of U-238 in a form of resonance interference correction factors. The parametrization is successful in that the root mean square errors of the interpolated SPH factors over the fuel regions of various pin-cells are within 0.1%. The improvement in reactivity error of the PSSL method is shown to be superior to that by the original SPH method in that the reactivity bias of -200 pcm to -300 pcm vanishes almost completely. It is demonstrated that the environment effect takes only about 4% in the reactivity improvement so that the pin-cell based PSSL method is effective in the assembly problems.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.49.2-49
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• 2002

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.7
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• pp.791-803
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• 2015

The effective cross sections (XSs) in the direct whole core calculation code nTRACER are evaluated by the equivalence theory-based resonance-integral-table method using the WIMS-based library as an alternative to the subgroup method. The background XSs, as well as the Dancoff correction factors, were evaluated by the enhanced neutron-current method. A method, with pointwise microscopic XSs on a union-lethargy grid, was used for the generation of resonance-interference factors (RIFs) for mixed resonant absorbers. This method was modified by the intermediate-resonance approximation by replacing the potential XSs for the non-absorbing moderator nuclides with the background XSs and neglecting the resonance-elastic scattering. The resonance-escape probability was implemented to incorporate the energy self-shielding effect in the spectrum. The XSs were improved using the proposed method as compared to the narrow resonance infinite massbased method. The RIFs were improved by 1% in $^{235}U$, 7% in $^{239}Pu$, and >2% in $^{240}Pu$. To account for thermal feedback, a new feature was incorporated with the interpolation of pre-generated RIFs at the multigroup level and the results compared with the conventional resonance-interference model. This method provided adequate results in terms of XSs and k-eff. The results were verified first by the comparison of RIFs with the exact RIFs, and then comparing the XSs with the McCARD calculations for the homogeneous configurations, with burned fuel containing a mixture of resonant nuclides at different burnups and temperatures. The RIFs and XSs for the mixture showed good agreement, which verified the accuracy of the RIF evaluation using the proposed method. The method was then verified by comparing the XSs for the virtual environment for reactor applicationbenchmark pin-cell problem, as well as the heterogeneous pin cell containing burned fuel with McCARD. The method works well for homogeneous, as well as heterogeneous configurations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.1269-1286
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• 2017

This paper presents a newly developed resonance self-shielding method based on Tone's method in $APOLLO3^{(R)}$ for fast and thermal reactor calculations. The new method is based on simplified models, the narrow resonance approximation for the slowing down source and Tone's approximation for group collision probability matrix. It utilizes mathematical probability tables as quadrature formulas in calculating effective cross-sections. Numerical results for the ZPPR drawer calculations in 1,968 groups show that, in the case of the double-column fuel drawer, Tone's method gives equivalent precision to the subgroup method while markedly reducing the total number of collision probability matrix calculations and hence the central processing unit time. In the case of a single-column fuel drawer with the presence of a uranium metal material, Tone's method obtains less precise results than those of the subgroup method due to less precise heterogeneous-homogeneous equivalence. The same options are also applied to PWR UOX, MOX, and Gd cells using the SHEM 361-group library, with the objective of analyzing whether this energy mesh might be suitable for the application of this methodology to thermal systems. The numerical results show that comparable precision is reached with both Tone's and the subgroup methods, with the satisfactory representation of intrapellet spatial effects.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.176-189
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• 2019

This paper presents a feasibility study for producing the medical isotope $^{99m}Tc$ using the hazardous and currently wasted radioisotope $^{99}Tc$. This can be achieved with the nuclear resonance fluorescence (NRF) phenomenon, which has recently been made applicable due to high-intensity laser Compton scattering (LCS) photons. In this work, 21 NRF energy states of $^{99}Tc$ have been identified as potential contributors to the photo-production of $^{99m}Tc$ and their NRF cross-sections are evaluated by using the single particle estimate model and the ENSDF data library. The evaluated cross sections are scaled using known measurement data for improved accuracy. The maximum LCS photon energy is adjusted in a way to cover all the significant excited states that may contribute to $^{99m}Tc$ generation. An energy recovery LINAC system is considered as the LCS photon source and the LCS gamma spectrum is optimized by adjusting the electron energy to maximize $^{99m}Tc$ photo-production. The NRF reaction rate for $^{99m}Tc$ is first optimized without considering the photon attenuations such as photo-atomic interactions and self-shielding due to the NRF resonance itself. The change in energy spectrum and intensity due to the photo-atomic reactions has been quantified using the MCNP6 code and then the NRF self-shielding effect was considered to obtain the spectrums that include all the attenuation factors. Simulations show that when a $^{99}Tc$ target is irradiated at an intensity of the order $10^{17}{\gamma}/s$ for 30 h, 2.01 Ci of $^{99m}Tc$ can be produced.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.89-94
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• 2020

This paper proposes a better shielding method to over sampling technique. The new method uses aluminum foil for RF shielding. As a result of the phantom test, when the over-sampling technique was applied, the aliasing artifact was reduced by about 94% compared to before the application, and the case where the aluminum shielding band was applied was also reduced by about 92% compared to before application. In addition, the scan time also increased by more than 3 times in the case of the over-sampling technique, while it was found that there was no change from before the application of the aluminum shielding band Therefore, it was confirmed that the shielding band using aluminum foil can effectively remove aliasing artifacts without increasing the scan time..

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.753-758
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• 2013

A new method of calculating sensitivity coefficients of core characteristics relative to infinite-dilution cross sections has been developed. Conventional sensitivity coefficients are evaluated for the changes of effective cross sections which are dependent on individual models of core and cell. Therefore a correction has been derived to the conventional sensitivity coefficients based on the perturbation theory. The accuracy of the present method has been verified by comparing numerical results of sensitivity coefficients with a reference Monte-Carlo method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.31-34
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• 2008

The neutron capture spectrum for the light nuclide was very useful to study the nuclear structure. In the present study, the capture gamma-ray from the 27-keV resonance of $^{19}F(n,g)^{20}F$ reaction were measured with an anti-Compton NaI(Tl) spectrometer and the 3-MV Pelletron accelerator of the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors at the Tokyo institute of technology. A neutron Time-of-Flight method was adopted with a 1.5 ns pulsed neutron source by the $^7Li(p,n)^7Be$ reaction. In the present experiment, a Teflon(($CF_2$)n) sample was used The sample was disk with a diameter of 90mm. The thickness of sample was determined so that reasonable counting rates could be obtained and the correction was not so large for the self-shielding and multiple scattering of neutrons in the sample, and was 5mm. The primary gamma-ray transitions were compared with previous measurement of Kenny.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.281-290
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• 2014

In order to properly quantify fission reactor neutronics parameter uncertainties, we have to use covariance data and sensitivity profiles consistently. In the present paper, we establish two consistent methodologies for uncertainty quantification: a self-shielded cross section-based consistent methodology and an infinitely-diluted cross section-based consistent methodology. With these methodologies and the covariance data of uranium-238 nuclear data given in JENDL-3.3, we quantify uncertainties of infinite neutron multiplication factors of light water reactor and fast reactor fuel cells. While an inconsistent methodology gives results which depend on the energy group structure of neutron flux and neutron-nuclide reaction cross section representation, both the consistent methodologies give fair results with no such dependences.