Benchmarking Translat for fission product generation - 227

The TransLAT lattice physics code was investigated to characterize its ability to simulate fission product generation in a nuclear reactor. Pin cell models for fuel from H.B. Robinson Unit 2, Calvert Cliffs No. 1, and Mihama Unit 3 were developed using TransLAT. These models were used to simulate reactor operation corresponding to measured samples with isotopic data reported in available literature for the three reactors. For this study, TransLAT was run using the Method of Characteristics. The results of the TransLAT simulations were then compared to the measured data. The results show that the TransLAT could predict the absolute concentrations of most fission products to within ±20% of the measured values and it could predict the ratios of fission products to within ±10% of the measured values. Thus TransLAT may be expected to produce reasonable estimates of fission product concentrations generated during reactor operation even using simple pin cell models. (authors)