Stability in boiling water reactor using fuel assemblies containing inert matrix as a fuel reload option

The dynamic behavior of three different proposals for reload as an option for Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 in Mexico is analyzed. These reload employ a fuel assembly design containing a fuel rods mixture of UO2 and PuO2 of weapon-grade in an inert matrix of CeO2. The assembly has an arrangement geometric 10 × 10, containing 42 fuel rods PuO2-CeO2, 34 fuel rods UO2 and 16 fuel rods UO2-Gd2O3. This fuel assembly is compatible with used in Laguna Verde UO2 fuel assemblies which does not initially contain plutonium. The stability analysis of the three proposals reloads using inert matrix fuels which were compared with UO2 reload was performed. A merge reload 36 inert matrix fuels and 80 UO2 fuels assemblies has a very similar behavior with based reload observed that it is a viable option for reducing plutonium inventories, especially weapon-grade.