SIMULATE5 analysis of a spent fuel pool

This paper describes proof-of-principle fuel pool criticality calculations using the nodal diffusion code SIMULATE5, which is supplied with cross section data from CASMO5. The accuracy of SIMULATE5 is tested against CASMO5 and MCNP6.2 for several demonstration problems using PWR fuel and a mock rack geometry. These test problems include various features, such as fuel with different exposures, empty locations, and a water reflector. Most of the tests are in two dimensions, but one three-dimensional test is included. For all test problems, SIMULATE5 predicts the eigenvalue within 250 pcm of the reference. Without its sub-mesh model, these results are much worse for several of the cases (up to 2200 pcm error). As expected, CASMO5 and MCNP6.2 agree closely. For these examples, SIMULATE5 is 50 to 150 times faster than CASMO5 and 10³ to 10⁵ times faster than MCNP6.2. Given its accuracy for these demonstration problems, along with its computational efficiency and ease-of-use, SIMULATE5 could be a useful tool for fuel pool criticality analysis. (authors)