Analysis of high moderation full MOX BWR core physics experiments BASALA

Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (NUPEC) has performed conceptual design studies of high moderation full MOX LWR cores that aim for increasing fissile Pu consumption rate and reducing residual Pu in discharged MOX fuel. As part of these studies, NUPEC, French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and their industrial partners implemented an experimental program BASALA following MISTRAL. They were devoted to measuring the core physics parameters of such advanced cores. The MISTRAL program consists of one reference UO2 core, two homogeneous full MOX cores and one full MOX PWR mock-up core that have higher moderation ratio than the conventional lattice. As for MISTRAL, the analysis results have already been reported on April 2003. The BASALA program consists of two high moderation full MOX BWR mock-up cores for operating and cold stand-by conditions. NUPEC has analyzed the experimental results of BASALA with the diffusion and the transport calculations by the SRAC code system and the continuous energy Monte Carlo calculations by the MVP code with the common nuclear data file, JENDL-3.2. The calculation results well reproduce the experimental data approximately within the same range of the experimental uncertainty. The analysis results of MISTRAL and BASALA indicate that these applied analysis methods have the same accuracy for the UO2 and MOX cores, for the different moderation MOX cores, and for the homogeneous and the mock-up MOX cores. (author)