Burnup-dependent core neutronics analysis and calculation of actinide and fission product inventories in discharged fuel of a material test research reactor

The System for Analysis of Reactor Core (SARC) has been developed for burnup analysis of nuclear reactors using whole core modeling and simulation by coupling the WIMS-D4S and CITATION. The system has the capability to use 1981, 1986 and other WIMS-D libraries recently released by International Atomic Energy Agency, based on the latest cross section data. The SARC was used for the analysis of the first equilibrium core of Pakistan Research Reactor-1 using newly released JENDL3.2 based WIMS-D library. The calculated cycle length and other core related parameters were found in good agreement with the experimental results. Changes in several core parameters such as core reactivity, flux, element-wise power densities, depletion of 235U and production of 239Pu were also analysed during the cycle. It was found that all these parameters vary linearly with burnup of the core. Moreover, the actinide and fission product inventories in the discharged fuel were also computed.