Effect of MOX fuel and the ENDF/B-VIII on the AP1000 neutronic parameters calculations by using MCNP6

Abstract

The present work studies the effect of introducing MOX fuel on Westinghouse AP1000 neutronic parameters. The neutronic calculations were performed by using the MCNP6 code with the ENDF/B-VII.1 library and the new release of the ENDF/B-VIII, the AP1000 core with three 235U enrichment zones (2.35 %, 3.40 %, and 4.45 %). The obtained results showed that the simulated model for the AP1000 core satisfies the optimization criteria as a Westing- house reference. The results which included: effective multiplication factor, keff, delayed neutron fraction, beff, excess reactivity, rex, shutdown margin, temperature reactivity coefficients, whole core depletion, neutron flux, power peaking factor and core power density, were calculated and compared with the available published results. The keff in the cold zero power was found to be 1.20495 and 1.20247 with the ENDF/B-VII.1 and the ENDF/B-VIII libraries, respectively, which matches the value of 1.205 presented in the AP1000 Design Control Document for the UO2 fuel core. On the other hand, keff in the cold zero power was found to be 1.19988 and 1.19860 for MOX core with the ENDF/B-VII.1 and the ENDF/B-VIII libraries, respectively, which show good reception and confirm the safety of the design and efficient modeling of AP1000 reactor core.