Comparison of PWR - burnup calculations with SCALE 5.0/TRITON other burnup codes and experimental results

The increasing tendency towards fuel lifetime extension in thermal nuclear reactors motivated validation work for available evaluation tools for nuclear fuel burnup calculations. In this study two deterministic codes with different transport solvers and one Monte Carlo method are investigated. The code system KAPROS/KARBUS uses the classical deterministic First Collision Probability method utilizing a cylinderized Wigner-Seitz cell. In the SCALES.0/TRITON/NEWT code the Extended Step Characteristic method is applied. In a first step the two deterministic codes are compared with experimental results from the KWO-Isotope Correlation Experiment up to 30 MWD/kg HM burnup, published in 1981. Two pin cell calculations are analyzed by comparison of calculated and experimental results for important heavy isotope vectors. The results are very satisfactory. Subsequently, further validation at higher burnup (< 80 MWD/kg HM) is provided by comparison of the two deterministic codes and the Monte Carlo based burnup code MONTEBURNS for PWR UO{sub 2} fuel assembly calculations. Possible reasons for differences in the results are analyzed and discussed. Especially the influence of cross section data and processing is presented. (authors)