LWR First Recycle of TRU with Thorium Oxide for Transmutation and Cross Sections

Andrea Alfonsi ; Gilles Youinou

关键词: Cross Sections;    LWR;    Thorium Oxide;    TRU;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1055988
RP-ID  :  INL/EXT-12-26633
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1055988

学科分类：核能源与工程

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

Thorium has been considered as an option to uranium-based fuel, based on considerations of resource utilization (thorium is approximately three times more plentiful than uranium) and as a result of concerns about proliferation and waste management (e.g. reduced production of plutonium, etc.). Since the average composition of natural Thorium is dominated (100%) by the fertile isotope Th-232, Thorium is only useful as a resource for breeding new fissile materials, in this case U-233. Consequently a certain amount of fissile material must be present at the start-up of the reactor in order to guarantee its operation. The thorium fuel can be used in both once-through and recycle options, and in both fast and thermal spectrum systems. The present study has been aimed by the necessity of investigating the option of using reprocessed plutonium/TRU, from a once-through reference LEU scenario (50 GWd/ tIHM), mixed with natural thorium and the need of collect data (mass fractions, cross-sections etc.) for this particular fuel cycle scenario. As previously pointed out, the fissile plutonium is needed to guarantee the operation of the reactor. Four different scenarios have been considered: ??? Thorium ??? recycled Plutonium; ??? Thorium ??? recycled Plutonium/Neptunium; ??? Thorium ??? recycled Plutonium/Neptunium/Americium; ??? Thorium ??? recycled Transuranic. The calculations have been performed with SCALE6.1-TRITON.