Addressing the Axial Burnup Distribution in PWR Burnup Credit Criticality Safety

This paper summarizes efforts related to developing a technically justifiable approach for addressing the axial burnup distribution in PWR burnup-credit criticality safety analyses. The paper reviews available data on the axial variation in burnup and the effect of axial burnup profiles on reactivity in a SNF cask. A publicly available database of profiles is examined to identify profiles that maximize the neutron multiplication factor, keff, assess its adequacy for general PWR burnup credit analyses, and investigate the existence of trends with fuel type and/or reactor operations. For this assessment, a statistical evaluation of the keff values associated with the profiles in the axial burnup profile database was performed that identifies the most reactive profiles as statistical outliers that are not representative of typical discharged SNF assemblies. The impact of these bounding profiles on the neutron multiplication factor for a high-density burnup credit cask is quantified. Finally, analyses are presented to quantify the potential reactivity consequence of assemblies with axial profiles that are not bounded by the existing database. The paper concludes with findings for addressing the axial burnup distribution in burnup credit analyses