Axial SPN and Radial MOC Coupled Whole Core Transport Calculation

Abstract

The Simplified PN (SPN) method is applied to the axial solution of the two-dimensional (2-D) method of characteristics (MOC) solution based whole core transport calculation. A sub-plane scheme and the nodal expansion method (NEM) are employed for the solution of the one-dimensional (1-D) SPN equations involving a radial transverse leakage. The SPN solver replaces the axial diffusion solver of the DeCART direct whole core transport code to provide more accurate, transport theory based axial solutions. In the sub-plane scheme, the radial equivalent homogenization parameters generated by the local MOC for a thick plane are assigned to the multiple finer planes in the subsequent global three-dimensional (3-D) coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) calculation in which the NEM is employed for the axial solution. The sub-plane scheme induces a much less nodal error while having little impact on the axial leakage representation of the radial MOC calculation. The performance of the sub-plane scheme and SPN nodal transport solver is examined by solving a set of demonstrative problems and the C5G7MOX 3-D extension benchmark problems. It is shown in the demonstrative problems that the nodal error reaching upto 1,400 pcm in a rodded case is reduced to 10pcm by introducing 10 sub-planes per MOC plane and the transport error is reduced from about 150pcm to 10pcm by using SP3. Also it is observed, in the C5G7MOX rodded configuration B problem, that the eigenvalues and pin power errors of 180 pcm and 2.2% of the 10 sub-planes diffusion case are reduced to 40 pcm and 1.4%, respectively, for SP3 with only about a 15% increase in the computing time. It is shown that the SP5 case gives very similar results to the SP3 case.