One of the limiting factors of the service life of a nuclear power plant involves the state of the reactor vessel and its internals. The structural materials of the vessel and its internals are subjected to intense irradiation and thermomechanical loads, resulting in radiation embrittlement that affects the mechanical properties of these elements. For this reason, determination of the radiation load, including fast neutron fluence, damaging dose (displacement per atom), and power density, represents an urgent task. In order to confirm the determination reliability of these values, the sensitivity of the calculated results to the uncertainty of the initial data used in the calculation was analyzed. The present paper considers uncertainties due to technological deviations in the dimensions of the core elements, geometric dimensions, operational parameters, and mass of the fuel in the fuel assembly. The effect of these uncertainties is estimated for the displacement per atom and power density of VVER-1000 internals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
PNAE G-7-002-86, Strength Calculation Standards for the Equipment and Pipelines of Nuclear Power Plants, Energoatomizdat, Moscow (1989).
T. Nguyen, S. Hoang, D. Hartanto, et al., “Investigation of the VVER-1000 reactor pressure vessel neutron fl uence and displacement per atom using MCNP6,” Rad. Phys. Chemistry, 177, 1–7 (2020).
N. I. Alekseev, S. N. Bol’shagin, E. A. Gomin, et al., “MCU-5 status,” Vopr. At. Nauki Tekhn. Ser. Fiz. Yad. Reakt., Iss. 1, 5–23 (2011).
M. A. Kalugin, D. S. Oleynik, and D. A. Shkarovsky, “Overview of the MCU Monte Carlo software package,” Ann. Nucl. Energy, 82, 54–62 (2015).
V. G. Dement’ev and D. S. Oleinik, “Monte Carlo simulation of the neutron characteristics of VVER-1000 core using the MCU-PD program and comparison of the results with calculations by the BIPR-7A program and experimental data,” Phys. At. Nuclei, 74, 1831–1835 (2011).
M. Norgett, M. Robinson, and I. Torrens, “A proposed method of calculating displacement dose rates,” Nucl. Eng. Des., 33, 50–54 (1975).
A. S. Bikeev, M. A. Kalugin, A. N. Kuznetsov, and D. A. Shkarovsky, “Possibility of calculating the radiation power density in the MCU-PTR software using KERMA factors,” Vopr. At. Nauki Tekhn. Ser. Yad.-Reakt. Konst., No. 4, 15–22 (2018).
S. T. Leskin, A. S. Shelegov, and V. I. Slobodchuk, Physical Features and Design of a VVER-1000 Reactor: Textbook, NIYaU MIFI, Moscow (2011).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 133, No. 5–6, pp. 272–275, November–December, 2022.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Daichenkova, Y.S., Kalugin, M.A., Prokhorov, D.N. et al. Study of the Sensitivity of the Calculated Radiation Load on VVER-1000 Internals to the Uncertainty of Initial Data. At Energy 133, 288–291 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-023-01010-6
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-023-01010-6