Multi-group SP3 approximation for simulation of a three-dimensional PWR rod ejection accident

Previous researchers have shown that the simplified P3 (SP3) approximation is capable of providing sufficiently high accuracy for both static and transient simulations for reactor core analysis with considerably less computational expense than higher order transport methods such as the discrete ordinate or the full spherical harmonics methods. The objective of this paper is to provide a consistent comparison of two-group (2G) and multi-group (MG) diffusion and SP3 transport for rod ejection accident (REA) in a practical light water reactor (LWR) problem. The analysis is performed on two numerical benchmarks, a 3 × 3 assembly mini-core and a full pressurized water reactor (PWR) core. The calculations were performed using pin homogenized and assembly homogenized cross sections for a series of benchmarks of increasing difficulty, in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D), 2G and MG, diffusion and transport, as well as with and without feedback. All results show consistency with the reference results obtained from higher-order methods. It is demonstrated that the analyzed problems show small group-homogenization effects, but relatively significant transport effects which are satisfactorily addressed by the SP3 transport method. The sensitivity tests also show that, for the REA simulation, the MG is more conservative than 2G, P1 is more conservative than SP3 for a 1/3 MOX loaded full-core problem.