Extending OpenMC Validation to Spent Fuel Canisters: A Criticality Benchmark Against MCNP

TL;DR

This paper benchmarks OpenMC against MCNP for spent fuel canister configurations, demonstrating strong agreement and validating OpenMC's use in dry storage and disposal scenarios.

Contribution

It extends OpenMC validation to spent nuclear fuel storage by benchmarking against MCNP across various configurations and environmental conditions.

Findings

OpenMC and MCNP agree within 0.8% in k-eff for dry storage.

OpenMC accurately captures neutron interactions in canister configurations.

Results support OpenMC's application in SNF transport and disposal.

Abstract

OpenMC is an open-source Monte Carlo code with increasing relevance in criticality safety and reactor physics applications. While its validation has covered a broad range of systems, its performance in spent nuclear fuel storage scenarios remains limited in the literature. This work benchmarks OpenMC against MCNP for eleven configurations based on the KBS-3 disposal concept, involving variations in geometry, fuel composition (fresh vs spent), and environmental conditions (e.g., air, argon, flooding scenarios). Effective multiplication factors (k-eff) and leakage fractions were evaluated for both codes. Results show strong agreement, with code-to-code k-eff differences below 0.8% in dry storage conditions, and consistent trends across all cases. Notably, OpenMC successfully captures inter-canister neutron interaction effects under periodic boundary conditions, demonstrating its applicability to dry storage configurations. This benchmark supports the extension of the validation domain of OpenMC toward SNF transport and disposal applications.