Conception of a full-core reactor model in transport theory

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The future success on nuclear energy in Canada is closely related to the successful design of a third-generation reactor, permitting to lower the cost of electricity while increasing the safety margins. The ACR-1000, being designed by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), is one such design. Later in time, fourth-generation reactors (Gen IV) are expected to produce very high temperature steam, a condition required for Hydrogen production. The AECL is proposing the Super Critical Water Reactor (SCWR) as a Gen IV concept. These reactors represent the most serious option to reduce both greenhouse effect and our dependency on fossil fuels. This NSERC/DG research proposal is related to the development of advanced numerical methods for setting reference reactor models for the ACR-1000 and for a high leakage core that could serve as a starting point for designing the SCWR. The advanced numerical methods being proposed in this application are solution techniques of the neutron transport equation with three common characteristics: (1) deterministic, (2) first-order transport operator and (3) superconvergent. Choosing deterministic approaches will enable us to implement them in the existing computer codes DRAGON V4 and TRIVAC (a subset of code DONJON V4). First order SN or Simplified PN approaches make possible the representation of voided (or close-to-void) regions and simplify the implementation of anisotropic scattering. Superconvergent approximations are those featuring primal-dual agreement, a numerical property that is related to an improvement of their accuracy for a given order of discretization. The following numerical approaches will be developed: (1) High-order diamond schemes and application to full-core problems (2) Development of 3D reactor models with the superconvergent SPN method (3) Development of the Slice Balance Approach and application to lattice and full-core problems.