Abstract:
Reactivity feedback coefficients are basic input data for systematic behaviors and accidental safety analysis of a nuclear reactor. They’re part of the key results used to verify and validate a reactor physics code and its corresponding methods, because these coefficients are intensely related to the variation of materials, temperature and dimension in the core. A set of whole-core simulations of the Superphenix reactor benchmark was performed with the Dragon/Donjon code using classic two-step scheme, obtaining a series of reactivity feedback coefficients and their differences comparing with the reference calculation using Serpent code. The results show that the Dragon/Donjon code is suitable to calculate the reactivity feedback coefficients of a sodium-cooled fast reactor, and the discrepancies of reactivity feedback coefficients between the Dragon/Donjon code and the benchmark results is acceptable. The results using SP3 method based on transport theory are more accurate than that using MCFD method based on diffusion theory, especially on the reactivity coefficients of reactor radial expansion, sodium density or void effect, axial fuel expansion. For the reactivity coefficients without the Doppler effect of structural materials, there’s not obvious difference observed in the results with JEFF 3.1.1 lib and ENDF/B 8.0 lib.