Development of reactor physics Monte Carlo model for MIT BEAVRS

Computer simulations play a very important role in the fields of science, engineering and technology. In the field of nuclear engineering, computer simulations help save tremendous amount of time, money and reduce unnecessary exposure to radiations. Development of new tools and methodologies need to be verified against trusted benchmarks. Benchmarks not only validate the tools but help users gain confidence of using those tools to obtain accurate results. In this study, Benchmark for Evaluation And Validation of Reactor Simulations (BEAVRS) set up by Computational Reactor Physics Group (CRPG) of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is modelled using open source Monte Carlo based code OpenMC. Monte Carlo based reactor physics code offer the benefit of exact 3D geometry along with continuous energy treatment as compared to homogenized geometry and multi-group treatment used in deterministic transport theory and diffusion theory based codes. Integral reactor physics parameters are calculated and compared with the reported benchmark values. This academic exercise will help gain expertise and confidence in the use of OpenMC code and also help to analyse/forecast the computational resources for such calculations.