APPLICATION OF TWO STAGE METHOD OF CHARACTERISTICS / SP3 METHODOLOGY TO TRISO-FUELLED LEU SPACE REACTOR IN WIMS 11

In order to minimise the mass of a 1MW e LEU space fission power system design, a rapid neutronics analysis tool is sought. A two-stage deterministic analysis routine has been constructed using a core-plane method of characteristics calculation followed by a full-core SP3 calculation, within the ANSWERS © code WIMS11. This is compared to a faster route that skips the core-plane calculation and also the Monte Carlo code Serpent. Results suggest sufficiently good agreement for the WIMS-based methods to be useful in a full system mass-minimising optimisation routine.