Experimental validation of radial reconstructed pin-power distributions in full-scale BWR fuel assemblies with and without control blade

For the test zone configuration without control blade, the pin-power reconstruction methodology delivers the same level of accuracy as the 2D transport calculations. On the other hand, larger deviations that are inherent to the use of reflected geometry in the lattice calculations are observed for the configuration with the control blade inserted. In the basic (reference) simulation cases, the calculated-to-experimental (C/E) ratios of the total fission rate have a standard deviation of 1.3% in configuration I-1A (regular) and 3.2% in configuration I-2A (controlled). These results are only slightly affected by changes in the lattice modelling. On the other hand, the use of correction factors to account for the spatial variation of the test zone PCRs tends to improve the C/E ratios, mainly in the controlled case.