Assessment of the uncertainties of MULTICELL calculations by the OECD NEA UAM PWR pin cell burnup benchmark

Abstract

Abstract Defining precisely the burnup of the nuclear fuel is important from the point of view of core design calculations, safety analyses, criticality calculations (e. g. burnup credit calculations), etc. This paper deals with the uncertainties of MULTICELL calculations obtained by the solution of the OECD NEA UAM PWR pin cell burnup benchmark. In this assessment Monte-Carlo type statistical analyses are applied and the energy dependent covariance matrices of the cross-sections are taken into account. Additionally, the impact of the uncertainties of the fission yields is also considered. The target quantities are the burnup dependent uncertainties of the infinite multiplication factor, the two-group cross-sections, the reaction rates and the number densities of some isotopes up to the burnup of 60 MWd/kgU. In the paper the burnup dependent tendencies of the corresponding uncertainties and their sources are analyzed.