Analytical Validation of Uncertainty in Reactor Physics Parameters for Nuclear Transmutation Systems

Abstract

To confirm the reliability of calculated reactor physics parameters for the nuclear transmutation systems, the uncertainty deduced from the covariance data prepared in JENDL-3.3 is compared with the differences in the reactor physicsparameters in the Monte-Carlo calculation using different nuclear data libraries, ENDF/B-VII.0 and JEFF-3.1.1. The Accelerator-Driven System (ADS) and the Minor Actinide (MA)-loaded Fast Reactor (FR) are selected as the representative transmutation systems. The criticality and void reactivity of these systems are discussed. The results show that the uncertainties deduced from the JENDL-3.3 covariance data are smaller than the differences in the reactor physics parameters among the nuclear data libraries. The cause of this discrepancy is that the covariance data of main nuclides and reactions in JENDL-3.3 are smaller than the relative differences in the cross sections among the nuclear data libraries. It is required to verify the uncertainty of the reactor physics parameters by integral experiments and to discuss the uncertainty utilization for the nuclear design accuracy.