Recent nuclear technology advances of GE-H and GNF in partnership with CFE's Laguna Verde 2

This paper is presented based on work stemming from the long-standing technical partnership between Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and Global Nuclear Fuel - Americas LLC (GNF), and this paper's purpose is to provide valuable information for the nuclear industry. First, a one-to-one comparison of measurements from Gamma Thermometers (G Ts) installed in Laguna Verde 2 (LV-2) core against axially corresponding Traverse In-core Probe (Tip) measurements is remarkably close. This longest running G T plant validation for the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) power monitoring devices is also proving that the devices have the potential to simplify power measurements in Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs). Second, code validation results show remarkable reduction of radial power uncertainty with respect to current technology when new GNF codes for three-dimensional core simulations are compared to Tip power measurements. The LV-2 core is of paramount importance for BWR data analysis since the core has been loaded from the start of operation with different GNF fuel bundle types, fuel management has been designed with GNF codes and on-line core monitoring has been performed with GNF's 3-Dimensional Monicore system. This validation is also reliable since gamma Tips are used for local power measurements rather than thermal neutron Tips, which are more sensitive to local turbulence and positional changes. A nuclear/thermal-hydraulic core simulation of GNF fuel is undertaken from the beginning of operation of LV-2 (cycle 1) through the range of different power scenarios including low power, original licensed thermal power, power up rate and extended power up rate. Results confirm the conclusions from previous validations in different BWRs and support GNF efforts for licensing the new generation of nuclear engineering codes. (Author)