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Methods and results for the MSLB NEA benchmark using SIMTRAN and RELAP-5
Publicated to:Nuclear Technology. 146 (1): 29-40 - 2004-01-01 146(1), DOI: 10.13182/NT04-A3484
Authors: Aragones, JM; Ahnert, C; Cabellos, O; Garcia-Herranz, N; Aragones-Ahnert, V;
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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is first to discuss the methods developed in our three-dimensional pressurized water reactor core dynamics code SIMTRAN and its coupling to the system code RELAP-5 for general transient and safety analysis. Then, we summarize its demonstration application to the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)/ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Benchmark on Main Steam Line Break (MSLB), co-sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other regulatory institutions. In particular, our work has been supported by the Spanish Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (CSN) under a CSN research project. Our results for the steady states and the guided-core transients, proposed as exercise 2 of the MSLB benchmark, show small deviations from the mean results of all participants, especially in core average parameters. For the full-coupled core-plant transients, exercise 3, a detailed comparison with the University of Purdue-NRC results using PARCS/RELAP-5, shows quite good agreement in both integral and local parameters, especially for the more extreme return-to-power scenario.
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Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Nuclear Technology due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2004, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Nuclear Energy and Engineering.
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 1.98, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Oct 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-10-15, the following number of citations:
- WoS: 8
- Scopus: 16
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (Aragones, JM) and Last Author (Aragones-Ahnert, V).
the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Aragones, JM.