Architecture Improvements and Retesting of the Microscopic Depletion Implementation in the MAMMOTH Reactor Physics Application
Nuclear fuel experiments conducted at the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) will be analyzed with the MAMMOTH reactor physics application, currently under development at Idaho National Laboratory. MAMMOTH natively couples with the BISON, RELAP-7, and Rattlesnake applications within the MOOSE framework. The implemented methods allow for simulating the irradiation of fuel in a nuclear reactor from the beginning of life in a nuclear reactor until it is placed in TREAT for fuel testing using the same finite element mesh throughout the analysis retaining a very high level of resolution and fidelity. The calculation of the isotopic distribution in fuel requires the solution to the decay and transmutation equations coupled to the neutron transport equation. This report focuses on three significant improvements to the MAMMOTH micro-depletion capability. First, the depletion architecture within MAMMOTH is modified to improve the flexibility and speed of burnup calculations. The results of various benchmark tests demonstrate that the refactoring of the previously implemented capability does not introduce any regression. The second improvement involves the expansion of the data functionality. MAMMOTH can now read the decay data files used by the Oak Ridge Isotope Generation (ORIGEN) code, thus enabling access to data of more than 1,600 isotopes. The third improvement is the capability to perform depletion at a constant power level which was verified via a comparison to ORIGEN.