Validation Work to Support the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory Calculational Burnup Methodology Using Shippingport Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) Spent Fuel Assay Data

Abstract

Six uranium isotopes and fourteen fission product isotopes were calculated on a mass basis at end-of-life (EOL) conditions for three fuel rods from different Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) measurements. The three fuel rods evaluated here were taken from an LWBR seed module, a standard blanket module, and a reflector (Type IV) module. The calculated results were derived using a depletion methodology previously employed to evaluate many of the radionuclide inventories for spent nuclear fuels at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The primary goal of the calculational task was to further support the validation of this particular calculational methodology and its application to diverse reactor types and fuels. Result comparisons between the calculated and measured mass concentrations in the three rods indicate good agreement for the three major uranium isotopes (U-233, U-234, U-235) with differences of less than 20%. For the seed and standard blanket rod, the U-233 and U-234 differences were within 5% of the measured values (these two isotopes alone represent greater than 97% of the EOL total uranium mass). For the major krypton and xenon fission product isotopes, differences of less than 20% and less than 30% were observed, respectively. In general, good agreement was obtained for nearly all the measured isotopes. For these isotopes exhibiting significant differences, possible explanations are discussed in terms of measurement uncertainty, complex transmutations, etc.