Investigating the Performance and safety features of Pressurized water reactors using the burnable poisons

•At the beginning of life calculations, two factors (keff and ßeff) are evaluated.•Comparative calculations show that HfB2 has the smallest value for Keff and largest value for ßeff.•During (BOC, EOC) maximum and minimum value for pin by pin power distribution are determined.•The large value of ßeff increases safety. Investigating the performance and safety features of Pressurized water reactors (PWRs) using the burnable poisons (BPs) are evaluated in this paper. Modeling and simulating of PWR assembly from Vera core physics benchmark are carried out using the MCNPX code. The effect of using different burnable poisons (eight) on the neutronic parameters are studied. Moreover, the types of BPs either as integral burnable absorbers (IBAs) or as burnable poison rods (BPRs) are investigated. The effect of these poisons on the effective multiplication factor is the first parameter that simulated. Gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) and Erbium oxide (Er2O3) are used as IBAs that mixed homogenously with uranium fuel. The results indicated that Erbium is more effective than Gadolinium due to the fast depletion of gadolinium that shortens the core life. Zirconium diboride (ZrB2), Lutetium Oxide (Lu2O3) and Protactinium Oxide (PaO2) are also investigated as IBAs that are used as coating the outer surface of fuel rod. The results demonstrated that Protactinium is more effective than other poisons. Moreover, the impact of Pyrex (SiO2-B2O3), WABA (Al2O3-B4C) and Hafnium di-boride (HfB2) are included and analyzed. Effective multiplication factor and beta effective are evaluated at the beginning of life of reactor operation. Finally, via the Pin by pin power distribution at BOC and EOC on the assembly level, maximum and minimum power values for the different cases are compared.