Burnup importance function introduced to give an insight into the end effect

Okuno, Hiroshi  ; Sakai, Tomohiro*

In order to facilitate discussions based on quantitative analysis about the end effect, which is often talked about in connection to burnup credit in criticality safety evaluation of spent fuel, we introduced in this paper a burnup importance function. This function shows the burnup effect on the reactivity as a function of the fuel position; an explicit expression of this function was derived according to the perturbation theory. The burnup importance function was applied to the Phase IIA benchmark model that was adopted by the OECD/NEA Expert Group on Burnup Credit Criticality Safety. The function clearly displayed that burnup importance of the end regions increases (1) as burnup, (2) as cooling time, (3) in consideration of burnup profile, and (4) in consideration of fission products.