Comparison of UOX and MOX for Super Critical LWR

Abstract

For the present design variant of fuel assemblies of the High Performance LWR, assembly and assembly cluster burnup calculations were performed to get information about k-infinity vs. burnup and power distributions for different moderator and coolant states. The analysis was performed for UOX and MOX fuel by the Monte Carlo code MCNP5 coupled with a burnup code. The moderator and coolant state parameters were varied according to typical values in evaporator, super heater I and super heater II. Single assemblies were moved inside a cluster to simulate bending effects due to temperature gradients etc. to get information about the influence on the power distribution.