Functionalization of the Discontinuity Factor in the Albedo-Corrected Parameterized Equivalence Constants (APEC) Method

Abstract

The Albedo-corrected Parameterized Equivalence Constants (APEC) method, a new leakage correction method for two-group nodal analysis of light water reactors, has been extended to discontinuity factor (DF) correction. First, the error of nodal calculations induced by an inaccurate assembly discontinuity factor (ADF) is evaluated using the reference two-group cross section (XS) and DF calculated from heterogeneous core transport calculations. Functionalization of DF is performed by finding relationships between surfacewise current-to-flux ratio and change of DF from ADF. The least-squares method is used to fit several candidate functions to various core calculation results. The coefficients of APEC XS and DF correction functions are determined considering several color-set models. In this work, the two-dimensional method of characteristics–based lattice code DeCART2D is used for reference core calculations and lattice calculations. The extended APEC method is implemented in an in-house NEM nodal code using the partial-current coarse mesh finite difference acceleration. A small modular reactor (SMR) initial core benchmark is analyzed to evaluate the performance of the extended APEC method. In addition, the extended APEC method is applied to several variants of the SMR core and large variants to assess its general applicability.

Keywords:

• APEC method
• discontinuity factor
• leakage correction
• current-to-flux ratio
• nodal equivalence theory

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning) (NRF-2016R1A5A1013919).