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

Alfonsi, Andrea ; Youinou, Gilles ; Sen, Sonat

Idaho National Laboratory

关键词: 11 Nuclear Fuel Cycle And Fuel Materials Cross Sections;    Tru;    Cross Sections;    Thorium Oxide;    Lwr;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1097136
RP-ID  :  INL/EXT-12-26633
RP-ID  :  DE-AC07-05ID14517
RP-ID  :  1097136

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 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.