Enhancements have been made to the REBUS-3/DIF3D code suite to facilitate its use for the design and analysis of prismatic Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTRs). A new cross section structure, using table-lookup, has been incorporated to account for cross section changes with burnup and fuel and moderator temperatures. For representing these cross section dependencies, three new modules have been developed using FORTRAN 90/95 object-oriented data structures and implemented within the REBUS-3 code system. These modules provide a cross section storage procedure, construct microscopic cross section data for all isotopes, and contain a single block of banded scattering data for efficient data management. Fission products other than I, Xe, Pm, and Sm, can be merged into a single lumped fission product to save storage space, memory, and computing time without sacrificing the REBUS-3 solution accuracy. A simple thermal-hydraulic (thermal-fluid) feedback model has been developed for prismatic VHTR cores and implemented in REBUS-3 for temperature feedback calculations. Axial conduction was neglected in the formulation because of its small magnitude compared to radial (planar) conduction. With the simple model, the average fuel and graphite temperatures are accurately estimated compared to reference STAR-CD results. The feedback module is currently operational for the non-equilibrium fuel cycle analysis option of REBUS-3. Future work should include the extension of this capability to the equilibrium cycle option of the code and additional verification of the feedback module.
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