Neutronics comparative analysis of plate-type research reactor using deterministic and stochastic methods

•DRAGON and DONJON are applied and verified in calculations of research reactors.•Continuous-energy Monte Carlo calculations by RMC are chosen as the references.•“ECCO” option of DRAGON is suitable for the calculations of research reactors.•Manual modifications of cross-sections are not necessary with DRAGON and DONJON.•DRAGON and DONJON agree well with RMC if appropriate treatments are applied.

Simulation of the behavior of the plate-type research reactors such as JRR-3M and CARR poses a challenge for traditional neutronics calculation tools and schemes for power reactors, due to the characteristics of complex geometry, highly heterogeneity and large leakage of the research reactors. Two different theoretical approaches, the deterministic and the stochastic methods, are used for the neutronics analysis of the JRR-3M plate-type research reactor in this paper. For the deterministic method the neutronics codes DRAGON and DONJON are used, while the continuous-energy Monte Carlo code RMC (Reactor Monte Carlo code) is employed for the stochastic approach. The goal of this research is to examine the capability of the deterministic code system DRAGON and DONJON to reliably simulate the research reactors. The results indicate that the DRAGON and DONJON code system agrees well with the continuous-energy Monte Carlo simulation on both keff and flux distributions if the appropriate treatments (such as the ECCO option) are applied.