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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Nicolas Martin, Alain Hébert
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 167 | Number 3 | March 2011 | Pages 177-195
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-45
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The possibility of performing Monte Carlo transport calculations using cross-section probability tables on the entire energy spectrum is discussed in this paper. This method possesses straight advantages toward other representations: Self-shielding effects are represented during the random walk in a straightforward way, and the calculation cost remains below continuous-energy simulations. This study takes advantage of previous contributions made in subgroup-based self-shielding models, regarding the definitions of optimized energy meshes and adequate numerical methods for consistently computing cross-section probability tables. Moment-based probability-table cross sections along with an energy mesh comprising only 295 groups lead to results with a similar level of accuracy to those obtained with a continuous-energy Monte Carlo method. Another innovative aspect of this work is related to the introduction of correlated weight matrices into a Monte Carlo algorithm. These correlated weights are used to represent mutual self-shielding effects occurring where resonances of different isotopes overlap.