FICST: A Tool for Sensitivity Analysis of SCWR Fuel Isotopic Composition to Nuclear Data

Abstract

With an ever-increasing population both in Canada and globally, an improved quality of life will depend on having access to energy. The non-renewable, carbon-based, sources of energy that presently provide a major amount of the world's energy supply are depleting and therefore will be expensive in the future. Nuclear technology is a relatively new technology which can fulfill future energy needs but requires highly specialized skills and knowledge to continue to make it safer, cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable. Thus the nuclear industry puts lots of efforts to develop and improve the next generation of nuclear power plants. The Supercritical Water Reactors (SCWRs) are one of the Generation IV nuclear-reactor systems. The SCWRs, to a large extent, are very similar to light water reactors, but with a simpler design. The main advantage of SCWRs is their higher thermal efficiency. The Canadian SCWR has adopted an innovative fuel concept which is a mixture of plutonium and thorium oxides (Th, Pu) O2. The role of nuclear data in fuel development and reactor-physics analysis is quite significant. With the development of nuclear data files over the years, nuclear cross sections and other parameters are widely available, but their accuracy is still a concern. Also the accuracy of nuclear data is more reliable for uranium-based fuels than for thorium-based fuels. It is not known how the uncertainties in the nuclear data will impact the fuel depletion in a SCWR. Thus a sensitivity analysis tool has been developed to evaluate the impact of uncertainties in the neutron cross-sections of the actinides present in SCWR fuel. This document provides the details on the theory and methodology used to develop this tool (FICST). The objective of this work is to develop a code, not any specific calculation done with it.