Conceptual Core Analysis of Long Life PWR Utilizing Thorium-Uranium Fuel Cycle

6th Asian Physics Symposium

Rouf^1 ; Su'Ud, Zaki^1

Nuclear and Biophysics Research Division, Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung

40132, Indonesia^1

关键词: Core calculations;    Fuel compositions;    Multiplication factor;    Power distributions;    Power peaking factor;    Thorium-uranium fuel cycles;    Uranium based fuel;    Uranium enrichment;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/739/1/012109/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/739/1/012109

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Conceptual core analysis of long life PWR utilizing thorium-uranium based fuel has conducted. The purpose of this study is to evaluate neutronic behavior of reactor core using combined thorium and enriched uranium fuel. Based on this fuel composition, reactor core have higher conversion ratio rather than conventional fuel which could give longer operation length. This simulation performed using SRAC Code System based on library SRACLIB-JDL32. The calculation carried out for (Th-U)O2and (Th-U)C fuel with uranium composition 30 - 40% and gadolinium (Gd2O3) as burnable poison 0,0125%. The fuel composition adjusted to obtain burn up length 10 - 15 years under thermal power 600 - 1000 MWt. The key properties such as uranium enrichment, fuel volume fraction, percentage of uranium are evaluated. Core calculation on this study adopted R-Z geometry divided by 3 region, each region have different uranium enrichment. The result show multiplication factor every burn up step for 15 years operation length, power distribution behavior, power peaking factor, and conversion ratio. The optimum core design achieved when thermal power 600 MWt, percentage of uranium 35%, U-235 enrichment 11 - 13%, with 14 years operation length, axial and radial power peaking factor about 1.5 and 1.2 respectively.