Effective Multiplication Factor Analysis of Gas-cooled Reactor using OpenMC code with ENDF/B-VII.1, ENDF/B-VIII.0 and JENDL-5.0 Nuclear Data Libraries Mochamad Aria Ibnu Rachmat and Dwi Irwanto
1 Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia
2 Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia
3 Nuclear Physics and Biophysics Research Group, Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia
Abstract
As the demand for nuclear energy keeps rising, Generation IV reactor designs continuously improve. One such potential reactor design is the Gas-cooled Reactor. Neutronic analysis is the foundation for ongoing design modifications and alternatives for the Helium Gas-cooled Reactor. An important aspect of neutronic analysis is the nuclear data library. This research compares how different nuclear data libraries impact a Helium Gas-cooled Reactor design by comparing the neutron effective multiplication factor (k-eff) value. This research was conducted by the Monte Carlo method using OpenMC code. ENDF/B-VII.1, ENDF/B-VIII.0 and JENDL-5.0 were used as nuclear data libraries to simulate the reactor design for ten years of depletion time with 1-year timesteps. The results show that while each nuclear data library^s average k-eff values vary, they all produce the same results at timestep zero, with k-eff values around 1.02500. The average k-eff value from simulation using the ENDF/B-VII.1 library is 1.01477, the average k-eff value from simulation using the ENDF/B-VIII.0 library is 1.01122, and the average k-eff value from simulation using the JENDL-5.0 library is 1.01047. Each simulation result has an average uncertainty of 0.00040. The difference is due to the different amounts of data in each library. JENDL-5.0 has the highest number of data inside its nuclear libraries, followed by ENDF/B-VIII.0 and ENDF/B-VII.1.
Keywords: Gas-cooled Reactor, Nuclear data library, Neutronic, Effective multiplication factor
