Verification of SARAX code system in the reactor core transient calculation based on the simplified EBR-II benchmark

Abstract

This paper shows the verification work of SARAX code system in the reactor core transient calculation based on the simplified EBR-II Benchmark. The SARAX code system is an analysis package developed by Xi'an Jiaotong University and aims at the advanced reactor R&D. In this work, a neutron-photon coupled power calculation model and a spatial-dependent reactivity feedback model were introduced. To verify the models used in SARAX, the EBR-II SHRT-45R test was simplified to an ULOF transient with an input flowrate change curve by fitting from reference. With the neutron-photon coupled power calculation model, SARAX gave close results in both power fraction and peak power prediction to the reference results. The location of the hottest assembly from SARAX and reference are the same and the relative power deviation of the hottest assembly is 2.6%. As for transient analysis, compared with experimental results and other calculated results, SARAX presents coincident results both in trend and absolute value. The minimum value of core net reactivity during the transient agreed well with the reported results, which ranged from −0.3$ to −0.35$. The results verify the models in SARAX, which are correct and able to simulate the in-core transient with reliable accuracy.