Coupled neutron transport and fuel depletion codes were compared on a simplified ref-erence case of a PWR fuel assembly with initial 235U enrichment of 4% and burnup of51 GWd/tHM. Two Monte Carlo (MC) codes, Serpent and ALEPH2, and two determin-istic codes, SCALE and DRAGON, were considered. A part of the nuclide vector wascompared for a cooling period of 5 years. Additionally, observables, measurable by non-destructive analysis methods, i.e. decay heat, neutron and -ray emission rates, werecompared as a function of cooling time. The differences between the two MC codes aresmall, mostly within 1%. The differences in results obtained by deterministic codes arelarger, and for production of actinides heavier than plutonium they may reach 7%. Thedecay heat predictions with Serpent, ALEPH2 and DRAGON agree within 1% for cool-ing time period 1-1000 years, while the prediction with SCALE module Polaris deviatesby around 2% within that cooling time period.
展开▼
