Benchmark Analysis of VVER-1000 Nuclear Reactor using MCNPX code for the Westinghouse and the TVEL Fuel Assemblies

Abstract

The computational benchmarks performed on the TVEL and the Westinghouse fuel assemblies for the VVER-1000 nuclear power reactor have been calculated by the Monte Carlo code (version MCNPX 2.7). The calculations were performed on models of the fuel assemblies of the VVER-1000 reactor. The basis was taken of a typical fuel assembly of the Russian TVEL suppliers and the new fuel assemblies of the American company Westinghouse. The aim of this work was to analyze the changes in the isotopic composition of spent nuclear fuel of VVER-1000 due to various operational conditions. The variations of keff and assembly's
average isotopic composition vs. burnup were calculated. Fission and activation products and actinide daughter nuclides selected for calculation e.g.235U, 236U, 239Pu, 154Eu, 134Cs, were those important for the assessment of nuclear safety in the management and storage of spent fuel. The variations of isotopic composition vs. time during operation and cooling were calculated. Most of the results agreed excellently with those calculated by the SERPENT code