Validation of updated neutronic calculation models proposed for Atucha-II PHWR. Part II: Benchmark comparisons of PUMA core parameters with MCNP5 and improvements due to a simple cell heterogeneity correction

In 2005 the Argentine Government took the decision to complete the construction of the Atucha-II nuclear power plant, which has been progressing slowly during the last ten years. Atucha-II is a 745 MWe nuclear station moderated and cooled with heavy water, of German (Siemens) design located in Argentina. It has a pressure vessel design with 451 vertical coolant channels and the fuel assemblies (FA) are clusters of 37 natural UO{sub 2} rods with an active length of 530 cm. For the reactor physics area, a revision and update of reactor physics calculation methods and models was recently carried out covering cell, supercell (control rod) and core calculations. This paper presents benchmark comparisons of core parameters of a slightly idealized model of the Atucha-I core obtained with the PUMA reactor code with MCNP5. The Atucha-I core was selected because it is smaller, similar from a neutronic point of view, more symmetric than Atucha-II, and has some experimental data available. To validate the new models benchmark comparisons of k-effective, channel power and axial power distributions obtained with PUMA and MCNP5 have been performed. In addition, a simple cell heterogeneity correction recently introduced in PUMA is presented, which improves significantly the agreement ofmore » calculated channel powers with MCNP5. To complete the validation, the calculation of some of the critical configurations of the Atucha-I reactor measured during the experiments performed at first criticality is also presented. (authors)« less