Analysis of mixed oxide fuel critical experiments with neutronics analysis codes for boiling water reactors

Critical experiments of UO2 and full mixed oxide (MOX) fuel cores conducted at the Tank-type Critical Assembly (TCA) were analyzed using BWR design-purpose codes HINES and CERES with ENDF/B files and Monte Carlo fine analysis codes VMONT and MVP with the JENDL-3.2 library. The averaged values of the multiplication factors calculated with HINES/CERES, VMONT and MVP agreed with those of experiments within 0.3%Δk. The values by the design-purpose codes showed a small difference of 0.1%Δk between UO2 and MOX cores. Monte Carlo code results showed that the JENDL-3.2 library had a tendency to overestimate the multiplication factors of UO2 cores by about 0.3%Δk compared with those values of MOX cores. The root mean square errors of calculated power distributions were less than 1% for HINES/CERES and VMONT. These results showed that (1) the accuracy of these codes when applied to full MOX cores was almost the same as their accuracy for UO2 cores, which confirmed the accuracy of present core design codes for full MOX cores; and (2) the accuracy of the 190-energy-group Monte Carlo calculation code VMONT was almost the same as that of the continuous-energy Monte Carlo calculation code MVP. (author)