Needs of reliable nuclear data and covariance matrices for Burnup Credit in JEFF-3 library

¹ CEA, DEN, DER, SPRC, Cadarache Center, F-13108 Saint Paul-lez-Durance, France
² EDF, 1 Avenue du Général de Gaulle, BP 408, F-92141 Clamart, France

Abstract

Burnup Credit (BUC) is the concept which consists in taking into account credit for the reduction of nuclear spent fuel reactivity due to its burnup. In the case of PWR-MOx spent fuel, studies pointed out that the contribution of the 15 most absorbing, stable and non-volatile fission products selected to the credit is as important as the one of the actinides. In order to get a “best estimate” value of the k_eff, biases of their inventory calculation and individual reactivity worth should be considered in criticality safety studies. This paper enhances the most penalizing bias towards criticality and highlights possible improvements of nuclear data for the 15 FPs of PWRMOx BUC. Concerning the fuel inventory, trends in function of the burnup can be derived from experimental validation of the DARWIN-2.3 package (using the JEFF-3.1.1/SHEM library). Thanks to the BUC oscillation programme of separated FPs in the MINERVE reactor and fully validated scheme PIMS, calculation over experiment ratios can be accurately transposed to tendencies on the FPs integral cross sections.