Importance of self-shielding for improving sensitivity coefficients in light water nuclear reactors

In order to perform sensitivity analyzes in light water reactors where self-shielding effect becomes important, a new method has been developed for calculating sensitivity coefficient of core characteristics relative to the infinite dilution cross-sections instead of the effective cross-sections. This method considers the change of the self-shielding factor due to cross-section perturbation for different nuclides and reactions. SRAC and SAINT codes are used to calculate the improved sensitivity; while the accuracy of the present method has been verified by MCNP code and good agreement has been found.