ZED-2 benchmarks performed in OpenMC and Serpent 2: A validation exercise for OpenMC applications

The Zero Energy Deuterium (ZED-2) reactor is a zero-power research reactor located at the Chalk River site of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). The reactor was built to assist in neutronics code validation efforts for CANadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactors, but may find further use in the validation of computer codes used in the design of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). This paper describes the application of the OpenMC and SERPENT 2 codes to two published benchmarks for ZED-2 neutronics experiments. The results were then compared to MCNP and MONK code results on file. Experiments from the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) handbook were reviewed to establish the differences one might expect from Monte Carlo code-to-code comparisons. The completed benchmarks were assessed against this review. In this manner, the OpenMC code is validated both against an experiment and against other validated codes.