A Novel Method for Simulating Spectral Nuclear Reactor Criticality by a Spatially Dependent Volume Size Control

Abstract

Controlled nuclear reactions in a nuclear reactor are one of the energy resources that may contribute to attend the increasing energy demand while minimizing impact on the environment. Because of its efficient energy release per nuclear reaction in comparison to processes that involve chemical reactions for instance (which differ by more than eight orders in magnitude) reactor control and safety is a crucial issue. Evidently, while designing new reactor conceptions or operating existing reactors the microscopic as well as macroscopic response of the nuclear process must be understood in detail and described adequately in terms of mathematical models together with experimental data such as the nuclear reaction cross sections (Sekimoto 2007). The physics of the nuclear reactions taking place in a power reactor and its influence on the neutron flux by perturbations from inside or outside the system are known reasonably well. Nevertheless, as the present contribution will show there is still space for progress which is manifest in a variety of recent attempts to create efficient and adequate algorithms that calculate neutron fluxes, as well as other reactor relevant quantities.