Decay Heat Analysis of a PMR200 VHTR Core by Using McCARD and ORIGEN2 codes

The decay heat of radioactive isotopes is one of main concerns in designing a reactor core as well as designing a spent fuel repository. In particular, the effective removal of the decay heat during accidents such as high or low pressure conduction cooling events is a crucial factor which determines the main design parameters of a very high temperature gas cooled reactor (VHTR) core. In a previous work, the applicability of the ORIGEN2 code for the analysis of VHTR core decay heat was demonstrated. The one-group cross sections of major actinides in the ORIGEN2 code were replaced with those generated from the HELIOS model for a PMR200 fuel block in the work. In this study, the decay heat of the PMR200 VHTR core was analyzed by using McCARD and ORIGEN2 codes and the accuracy of the decay heat calculation by the HELIOS/ORIGEN2 codes was verified by comparing it with those from McCARD/ORIGEN2 calculation