Evaluation of the AP1000 delayed neutron parameters using MCNP6

Abstract

The MCNP6 code contains numerous features, one of those is to determine the delayed neutron parameters. The accuracy of calculated delayed neutron parameters affect the accuracy of transient or dynamic condition. The objective of this paper is to determine the delayed neutron parameters of the advance PWR reactor, AP1000, using MCNP6 code with the recent ENDF/B evaluated nuclear data file ENDF/B-VII.1. The MCNP6 calculation results shows that the maximum difference occurred in the βi and λi parameters are 38.30% and 45.63%, respectively. The superiority of MCNP6 can be seen in the change of prompt neutron life time (ℓ) parameters that cannot be obtained by the deterministic code, so it can be used in the sensitivity analysis of the delayed neutron parameters. Based on this research work, the accident analysis of the AP1000 reactor use the effective delayed neutron fraction (β eff) of0.0051 and the prompt neutron life time (ℓ) of 19.5 μs for the first cycle.