Subcritical Facility Venus-1 of the China Institute of Atomic Energy

Analyses were performed for the experimental facility referred to as the China ADS Venus-1 subcritical facility (hereafter referred to as Venus-1 in this Section) of the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE). This ADS is used for transmutation studies and operation in subcritical modes. These subcritical configurations are driven by an external neutron source, and they are used for measuring the neutronic parameters related to subcritical operating conditions. The obtained experimental data form a basis for the benchmarking of codes, models, and nuclear data usually employed for subcritical systems. In the current methodology, codes and data used for subcritical systems calculations were originally developed for critical systems analyses. This situation gives rise to the need for cross checking analytical results and experimental data. The aim of the present project is to obtain standard static and kinetic parameters of the coupled system (subcritical core driven by a neutron source) to cross-check the computational results as well as the experimental data, if available. This approach should help in defining the accuracy that can be anticipated for subcritical core calculations, the needs for improvements in modelling the details, the identification of those parameters required to define the characteristics of subcritical systems, and in some cases, to refine the definition of these parameters. This last issue arises due to the fact that some of the standard parameters definitions for reactor systems have not been revised in order to account for the behaviour of source-driven subcritical systems. Analyses of the computed results and their comparisons to experimental data should provide insight regarding consistent criteria that are needed for characterizing LEU-ADS. The present Section provides and discusses the results from calculations for Venus-1 that utilize four distinct nuclear data libraries, with a single Monte Carlo code (MCNP-5) used for these computations. The data libraries considered were ENDF/B-VI.6, ENDF/B-VII.0, CENDL 3.1, and the ADS 2.0 Library.