Physical Design of High-Performance Fuel Assembly Based on Fully Ceramic Microencapsulated Fuel for Supercritical CO2 Cooled Reactor

Fully ceramic microencapsulated fuel (FCM) is employed in the supercritical CO2 (S-CO2)-cooled reactor as accident tolerant fuel (ATF). Although the fuel and the assembly substrate contain SiC, the assembly cannot be sufficiently moderated due to the weak moderating performance of S-CO2, which affects the neutronics economy seriously. In this study, a new fuel assembly based on FCM fuel is proposed for the S-CO2 cooled reactor. Besides, the solid moderator rod is introduced into the design. Although the introduction of moderator rods can effectively improve the moderation performance of S-CO2 reactor assembly, it will lead to the deterioration of uniform moderation. To further improve the uniform moderation, arrangement of moderator rods and fuel enrichment partition are studied. Finally, the results show clearly that a better balance between uniform moderation and sufficient moderation can be obtained in the high-performance S-CO2 reactor assembly.

BURNUP SENSITIVITY CALCULATIONS WITH CBZ FOR LIGHT WATER REACTOR ASSEMBLY PROBLEMS

Sensitivities of k∞ and nuclides number densities during nuclear fuel burnup with respect to nuclear data are calculated with a reactor physics code system CBZ. Sensitivity calculations are carried out with the depletion perturbation theory applicable to nuclear fuel assemblies including burnable absorbers. Numerical results are presented both for BWR and PWR assemblies, and those demonstrate usefulness and effectiveness of burnup sensitivity calculation capabilities for LWR fuel assemblies.

Computational study on distribution feasibility of radioactive waste transmutation in accelerator driven system

In this paper, the feasibility of high-level radioactive waste transmutation in accelerator driven system sub-critical reactor assembly, has been studied for two zone's model and with three different core configurations. The inner zone has a fast neutron spectrum and the outer one has a thermal neutron spectrum. The subcritical core is coupled with external neutron source of energy 14 MeV (D-T source). The effects of high level waste isotopes sample (238Pu, 239Pu, 240Pu, 241Pu, 242Pu, 241Am, 243Am, 244Cm, and 245Cm) distribution on the neutron spectrum and burnup performance in the inner zone have been investigated and discussed, by proposed three core configurations non-uniform, uniform, and spiral. The burnup calculations have been performed for one-year operation cycle for all the all proposed models. This work shows that one can effectively transmute most of the actual minor actinides isotopes in the inner fast spectrum zone of the proposed system, with optimal distribution of these isotopes.

Effect of Axial Distribution of Gadolinium Burnable Poison in Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor Assembly

The radial and axial power distribution in power reactors are determined mainly by the patterns of the fuel assembly and the burnable absorber at the beginning of cycle. In Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR), gadolinium burnable absorber is used to decrease the relative power of fresh fuel assemblies. In this paper, the effect of the axial distribution of gadolinium (Gd) on the power of the APWR assembly is studied. Three models of APWR assemblies are simulated using MCNP6 code. In the first model, UO2 fuel is distributed uniformly in all the fuel rods. In the other two models some of the UO2 fuel rods are replaced by UO2-Gd2O3 rods in part length distribution. Two gadolinium concentrations 6% and 10% are used. The main neutronic parameters are estimated for the three models: the multiplication factor (K-infinity) as a function of burnup (GWd/MTU), the radial and axial power distributions. The results show that the distribution of the gadolinium absorber in the central region of fuel rod (part-length absorber) leads to flattening of axial power, which means additional axial power distribution control.