PWR advanced fuel high burnup-dependent xenon oscillation controllability assessment

摘要

The controllability of xenon oscillations in a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) fuel assembly was evaluated using the MCNP and ORIGEN-2 codes. Burnup-dependent symmetrical cosine depleted nuclide profiles were generated for advanced high burnup uranium oxide (UO2) and mixed oxide (MOX) fuels. A Monte Carlo burnup coupling BASH script (MCOS) was used to calculate burnup-dependent neutron Fission Tally and Xe-135 axial relative oscillation profiles. Burnup-dependent xenon oscillation controllability was then assessed for the advanced high-burnup UO2 and MOX fuels using MCOS-calculated xenon reactivity worth swing bands (Delta K) with respect to the mean. The advanced fuels xenon oscillation bands Delta K are bounded by the typical PWR uranium oxide fuel with U-235 enrichment of 3.0 wt%. It has demonstrated that the typical PWR full/partial length control rod banks system's reactivity can adequately control the high burnup advanced fuels xenon oscillation in full power operation. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.