Validation of a methodology for fuel management analysis of Laguna Verde nuclear power plant

This paper shows the validation of the fuel management methodology based on the state of the art lattice physics code HELIOS and the CM-PRESTO code, for the fuel management analysis of the Laguna Verde nuclear power plant (LVNPP). The validation of these codes is performed with data from the ®rst ®ve operating cycles of LVNPP Unit 1. HELIOS calcula- tions were performed for three di€erent BWR standard type assemblies and compared with Monte Carlo, RECORD and fuel vendorsʹ results. The CM-PRESTO results are compared against plant information, such as K-e€ective at hot and cold conditions, thermal limits cal- culated by the process computer and instruments readings from the traveling in-core probes (TIP) and the local power range monitor (LPRM). Results show an improvement compared with those obtained with the previous methodology based on RECORD/PRESTO-B