SUPR
Development of SUNRISE-LFR: Sweden's new lead-cooled research reactor - investigation of Station Blackout accidents
Dnr:

NAISS 2025/22-503

Type:

NAISS Small Compute

Principal Investigator:

Fredrik Dehlin

Affiliation:

Kungliga Tekniska högskolan

Start Date:

2025-04-02

End Date:

2025-11-01

Primary Classification:

10301: Subatomic Physics

Allocation

Abstract

The world needs to transition away from fossil fuels towards sustainable energy sources in order to mitigate the anthropogenic climate change. Within the SUNRISE centre, researchers from KTH, Uppsala University and Luleå Technical University are working towards deploying Sweden's first-ever lead-cooled research reactor, as a mean to address the sustainable energy challenge. To ensure that the reactor operates with optimal performance and at the highest level of safety, numerous neutron transport calculations need to be performed. For this purpose, we utilize the Monte Carlo neutron transport code Serpent 2, the gold standard for nuclear reactor physics calculations, when characterizing and evaluating our pre-conceptual design. However, the main drawback of the Monte Carlo method is that it requires a significant amount of computational resources to yield accurate and reliable results, and for the safety evaluation of SUNRISE-LFR we require to perform multiple such calculations. Hence, the computational resources provided by NAISS/PDC will enable multiple and highly parallelized calculations which consequently leads to a quicker characterization and ultimately a more expeditious deployment of much needed sustainable energy production. This project is a continuation from NAISS 2023/22-1236, where we will utilize the computational resources to support the writing of a research paper investigating the impact of different transuranium vectors on the dynamic behaviour of a lead reactor. For this input data to the safety analysis code SAS4A/SASSYS-1 needs to be generated with Serpent 2. NAISS/PDC will enable the calculations of the required input coefficients. Present proposal constitutes a part of the SUNRISE Centre, a centre at KTH funded by SSF with the ambition of designing a lead-cooled research and demonstration reactor.