The efficient and safe management of spent fuel arising from the operation of commercial nuclear power plants is an important issue. In this context, the partitioning and transmutation (P&T) of minor actinides and long-lived fission products can play an important role, reducing significantly the burden on geological repositories of radioactive waste and enabling their more effective use.
International interest in accelerator-driven systems (ADS) has been expressed due to their potential use in the transmutation of minor actinides. However, much R&D work is still required in order to demonstrate the desired capability of the system as a whole, and the current methods of analysis and nuclear data for minor actinide burners are not as well established as those for conventionally fuelled systems.
A series of theoretical ADS physics benchmarks has thus been organised by the NEA. Many improvements and clarifications in nuclear data and calculation methods have been achieved. However, following an initial series of benchmarks, some significant discrepancies in important parameters were not fully understood and still required clarification. Hence, the first experiment-based benchmark using MASURCA critical and subcritical experiments (called MUSE-4 experiments) was launched.
This report provides an analysis of the benchmark results supplied by 16 institutions from 14 countries. The calculated results were compared against experimental data, whenever available. This report will be of particular interest to reactor physicists and nuclear data evaluators developing nuclear systems, especially ADS, for radioactive waste management.