A Detailed Analysis of the H.B. Robinson-2 Reactor Pressure Vessel Dosimetry Benchmark

Abstract

The operation of many nuclear pressurized water reactors is being extended beyond their design lifetime limit. From the perspective of possible further lifetime extension, safety requirements are a priority. Therefore, the quantification of the neutron irradiation embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is an important issue, as this is a guiding parameter that influences the reactor lifetime. In this context, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire developed a calculation scheme for the analysis of RPV aging under neutron irradiation, named VACS (vessel aging calculation scheme). VACS couples a deterministic approach (CASMO5 and SIMULATE5) to evaluate the full-core fission neutron source term and a Monte Carlo modeling (MCNP6) approach to model the neutron attenuation from the core to sites of interest (RPV, surveillance capsules, etc.). To ensure the reliability of aging predictions, this paper describes a detailed analysis of the neutron H.B. Robinson-2 reactor pressure vessel dosimetry benchmark. The results indicate that VACS shows satisfactory accuracy when the ENDF-B/VII.1 or JEFF-3.3 nuclear data libraries are used in the attenuation calculation. However, the use of ENDF-B/VIII.0 leads to significantly worse results.