fuel burnup
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2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odera Dim ◽  
Carlos Soto ◽  
Yonggang Cui ◽  
Lap-Yan Cheng ◽  
Maia Gemmill ◽  
...  

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4385
Author(s):  
Jacopo Buongiorno ◽  
Ben Carmichael ◽  
Bradley Dunkin ◽  
John Parsons ◽  
Dirk Smit

We introduce the concept of the nuclear battery, a standardized, factory-fabricated, road transportable, plug-and-play micro-reactor. Nuclear batteries have the potential to provide on-demand, carbon-free, economic, resilient, and safe energy for distributed heat and electricity applications in every sector of the economy. The cost targets for nuclear batteries in these markets are 20–50 USD/MWht (6–15 USD/MMBTU) and 70–115 USD/MWhe for heat and electricity, respectively. We present a parametric study of the nuclear battery’s levelized cost of heat and electricity, suggesting that those cost targets are within reach. The cost of heat and electricity from nuclear batteries is expected to depend strongly on core power rating, fuel enrichment, fuel burnup, size of the onsite staff, fabrication costs and financing. Notional examples of cheap and expensive nuclear battery designs are provided.


Author(s):  
Jumpei Sasuga ◽  
Go Chiba ◽  
Yasunori Ohoka ◽  
Kento Yamamoto ◽  
Yasuhiro Kodama ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-44
Author(s):  
Wei Shen ◽  
Benjamin Rouben

There are 2 concepts related to the “age” of fuel: irradiation (fluence) and fuel burnup. The fuel irradiation in a given fuel bundle, denoted ω, is defined as the time integral of the thermal flux in the fuel during its residence time in the core. Another term for irradiation is fluence. Irradiation is also known as the thermal-neutron exposure of the fuel. The units of irradiation are neutrons/cm2, or more conveniently, neutrons per kilobarn, n/kb. Since the cut-off of the thermal-energy range may be defined differently in different computer codes, the fuel irradiation may vary from computer code to computer code, and caution must therefore be exercised when comparing irradiation values using different codes. In documents, it has been more and more usual to report values of fuel burnup rather than fuel irradiation, as burnup does not suffer from differences in definition between codes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Wei Shen ◽  
Benjamin Rouben

Most fission products absorb neutrons to some extent and they accumulate slowly as the fuel burnup increases, hence decrease the long-term reactivity. The neutron-absorbing fission-product xenon-135 has particular operational importance. Its concentrations can change quickly in a power maneuvre, producing major changes in neutron absorption on a relatively short-time scale (minutes).


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-55
Author(s):  
Yu. Fylonych ◽  
◽  
V. Zaporozhan ◽  
O. Balashevskyi ◽  
K. Merkotan ◽  
...  

The developed model of the WWER-1000 reactor using MCNP6.2 (Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code) includes the detailed core taking into account the design of the fuel assemblies, as well as the baffle, the lower plenum, the fuel support columns, the core barrel, a downcomer, and the reactor pressure vessel. It allows implementing multifunctional calculations such as recriticality with various fuel configurations, the critical concentration of boric acid, determination of the axial and radial peaking factor in the reactor core, etc. For obtaining the more precise result of the cumulation nitrogen-16 formation rate, the contribution from different water volumes was taken into account: in the core, above the fuel and the top nozzle, in the top nozzle of the fuel assembly, in the bottom nozzle, between the fuel and the bottom nozzle, in the axial channels of the baffle, in the reflector. In order to obtain the realistic boundary conditions, the change of the isotopic composition in the fuel assemblies during one fuel cycle was calculated using the ORIGEN-ARP of SCALE software. Therefore, the influence of the nuclear fuel depletion of fuel assemblies in the WWER-1000 reactor on the change of the basic neutron-physical characteristics was determined such as the distribution of the neutron flux density with the energies necessary to initiate the 16O(n,p)16N reaction, the average number of neutrons per fission, the neutron spectrum and average fission energy. As a result, the dependence of the nitrogen-16 formation rate in the primary coolant system on the nuclear fuel burnup is obtained.


2021 ◽  
Vol 247 ◽  
pp. 10013
Author(s):  
O.V. Vilkhivskaya ◽  
I.A. Evdokimov ◽  
V.V. Likhanskii ◽  
E.Yu. Afanasieva

The present work continues the series of papers on the revision of the conventional technique for evaluation of leaking fuel burnup during reactor operation at nuclear power plants (NPPs). The focus was made on reduction of uncertainties in evaluation of leaking fuel burnup in modern fuel cycles at WWER-1000 power units. A set of models was proposed for express calculation of the build-up of caesium isotopes in fuel and to relate 134Cs/137Cs activity ratio with fuel burnup for each rod in the core. These models are based on routine neutronic calculations of pin-by-pin linear heat generation rates which are performed at NPPs for each particular fuel cycle with particular core loading pattern (however, these calculations do not provide data on caesium inventory in fuel). Previously, the proposed models have been validated against several practical cases. This latest validation study relied on the analysis of the most recent fuel cycles at two NPPs that reported spike-events and identified the leaking fuel assemblies (LFAs) after the reactor shutdown. The calculated 134Cs/137Cs activity ratios in the fuel of the LFAs were compared to the NPPs data on the activity measurements, and to the post-irradiation examination (PIE) data provided for one FA. A reasonable agreement between the model predictions and the experimental data on 134Cs/137Cs activity ratios in the fuel as a function of its burnup is shown for the advanced FA designs in modern fuel cycles.


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