Comparison of Standard Light Water Reactor Cross-Section Libraries using the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Boiling Water Reactor Benchmark Problem

Westinghouse Electric Company LLC 1000 Westinghouse Drive, Cranberry Township, PA 16066, USA

^a Corresponding author: jkulesza@umich.edu

Published online: 3 February 2016

Abstract

This paper describes a comparison of contemporary and historical light water reactor shielding and pressure vessel dosimetry cross-section libraries for a boiling water reactor calculational benchmark problem. The calculational benchmark problem was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory by the request of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The benchmark problem was originally evaluated by Brookhaven National Laboratory using the Oak Ridge National Laboratory discrete ordinates code DORT and the BUGLE-93 cross-section library. In this paper, the Westinghouse RAPTOR-M3G three-dimensional discrete ordinates code was used. A variety of cross-section libraries were used with RAPTOR-M3G including the BUGLE93, BUGLE-96, and BUGLE-B7 cross-section libraries developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and ALPAN-VII.0 developed at Westinghouse. In comparing the calculated fast reaction rates using the four aforementioned cross-section libraries in the pressure vessel capsule, for six dosimetry reaction rates, a maximum relative difference of 8% was observed. As such, it is concluded that the results calculated by RAPTOR-M3G are consistent with the benchmark and further that the different vintage BUGLE cross-section libraries investigated are largely self-consistent.