| No. | Year | Title | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 2014 | Calculation of the Radial and Axial Flux and Power Distribution for a CANDU 6 Reactor with both the MCNP6 and Serpent CodesM. S. Hussein, H. W. Bonin, B. J. LewisBuilt full 3-D MCNP6 and Serpent models of the CANDU 6 (Gentilly-2) core with 37-element bundles and compared flux and power-density maps; Serpent matched MCNP6 and was the more efficient of the two. | PBNC 2014Conference · Vancouver |
| 02 | 2014 | Burnup Calculation of a CANDU6 Reactor Using the Serpent and MCNP6 CodesM. S. Hussein, H. W. Bonin, B. J. LewisValidated whole-core burnup in MCNP6 and Serpent against WIMS-AECL, the industry lattice code, with k-effective versus burnup in excellent agreement. Still cited in 2025 work on SMR spent fuel in CANDU. | PBNC 2014Conference · Vancouver |
| 03 | 2016 | The application of UWB1 nuclear fuel depletion code on a CANDU fuel bundleM. Lovecký, R. Škoda, M. S. Hussein, J. J. Song, P. K. ChanBenchmarked the University of West Bohemia's fast depletion code UWB1 on the 37-element CANDU bundle against WIMS-AECL, Serpent and MCNP6, so burnable-absorber studies can run in seconds per depletion step instead of hours. | Prog. Nucl. EnergyJournal |
| 04 | 2018 | Uranium Nitride Fuels for Application in CANDU ReactorsJ. Wallenius, M. HusseinNatural uranium nitride made with nitrogen-15 in a CANDU core lengthens the average bundle residence time from 210 to 360 days compared with UO₂; coolant void worth rises by 20 % and the total power coefficient halves. | PHYSOR 2018Conference · Cancún, Mexico |
| 05 | 2017 | Design of a Multispectrum CANDU Reactor for Burning Actinides: An Approach of Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Fuel RecyclingMohamed Salah HusseinSix full-core MSCR models in Serpent. The best uranium model destroyed 10.7 % of fissile isotopes in 1000 days; the best plutonium model 15.3 % over 2600 days. Either core alone is subcritical, so disturbing one shuts the reactor down. | PhD thesis, RMCThesis · Kingston, Ontario |
§ Research CANDU 6 core modelling
The CANDU 6 core, modelled channel by channel.
Full three-dimensional Monte Carlo models of the Gentilly-2 CANDU 6 core, with every channel and every 37-element bundle, used to map flux, power and burnup and to validate the codes against the industry's own.
How a CANDU reactor works
CANDU is the Canadian pressurised heavy-water reactor. Heavy water slows neutrons with very little absorption, so the reactor can run on natural uranium, with no enrichment. The core is a large horizontal tank, the calandria, filled with cool, low-pressure heavy-water moderator. Running through it are horizontal fuel channels: pressure tubes that carry the fuel and the hot, pressurised heavy-water coolant, separated from the moderator by a gas-filled calandria tube. The CANDU 6 has 380 channels, each holding 12 fuel bundles.
The fuel bundle. The standard CANDU 6 bundle is a short cylinder, about half a metre long, of 37 fuel elements: Zircaloy tubes filled with natural uranium dioxide pellets, arranged in rings around a centre element. The same bundle design recurs through his work, including both cores of the Multispectrum CANDU Reactor.
On-power refuelling. Because natural uranium has little excess reactivity, a CANDU is refuelled continuously. Fuelling machines lock onto both ends of a channel while the reactor runs, push fresh bundles in at one end and take spent bundles out at the other, one channel at a time and a few channels each day. There is no refuelling outage, and the power shape across the core is managed partly by choosing which channels to refuel.
Safety. CANDU reactors have two independent, fast-acting shutdown systems: spring-assisted shutoff rods that drop into the core, and injection of a neutron-absorbing liquid into the moderator. The large, cool moderator also acts as a heat sink in some accident sequences. One known physics feature is a positive coolant void reactivity: if coolant boils or is lost, reactivity rises, and the shutdown systems are designed around that.
What he modelled
At the Royal Military College of Canada he built full-core models of the Gentilly-2 CANDU 6, channel by channel and bundle by bundle, in both MCNP6 and Serpent. From them he computed the multiplication factor and the radial and axial distributions of flux and power density, and compared the two codes: they agreed, and Serpent was faster. He defined a channel-flux-to-fuel-flux ratio, used to turn a channel’s flux tally into per-bundle power.
He then carried the same core through burnup and compared k-effective against burnup with WIMS-AECL 3.1.2.1, the lattice code the Canadian industry uses, with excellent agreement. The validated CANDU 6 model is the base on which his thesis builds the Multispectrum CANDU Reactor.
Where this leads
A validated full-core model is a working tool: fuel changes, absorbers, new fuels and hybrid cores can be tested on it. His thesis used it that way for the fast-thermal MSCR; his other CANDU work covers bundle depletion with UWB1 and, with KTH, uranium nitride fuel.
§1 Papers
The work this rests on.
§2 Related