Monte Carlo depletion calculations using VESTA 2.1 new features and perspectives

VESTA is a Monte Carlo depletion interface code that is currently under development at IRSN. With VESTA, the emphasis lies on both accuracy and performance, so that the code will be capable of providing accurate and complete answers in an acceptable amount of time compared to other Monte Carlo depletion codes. From its inception, VESTA is intended to be a generic interface code so that it will ultimately be capable of using any Monte-Carlo code or depletion module and that can be tailored to the users needs. A new version of the code (version 2.1.x) will be released in 2012. The most important additions to the code are a burn up dependent isomeric branching ratio treatment to improve the prediction of metastable nuclides such as {sup 242m}Am and the integration of the PHOENIX point depletion module (also developed at IRSN) to overcome some of the limitations of the ORIGEN 2.2 module. The task of extracting and visualising the basic results and also the calculation of physical quantities or other data that can be derived from the basic output provided by VESTA will be the task of the AURORA depletion analysis tool which will be released at the same time asmore » VESTA 2.1.x. The experimental validation database was also extended for this new version and it now contains a total of 35 samples with chemical assay data and 34 assembly decay heat measurements. (authors)« less