Neutronic Assessment of Transmutation Target Compositions in Heterogeneous Sodium Fast Reactor Geometries.

Bays, S. E. ; Ferrer, R. M. ; Pope, M. A. ; Forget, B. ; Asgari, M.

Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee

关键词: Transmutation;    Neutrons;    Fast reactors;    Targets;    Compositions;   

RP-ID  :  DE2008926345

学科分类：工程和技术（综合）

美国|英语

来源: National Technical Reports Library

【 摘 要 】

The sodium fast reactor is under consideration for consuming the transuranic waste in the spent nuclear fuel generated by light water reactors. This work is concerned with specialized target assemblies for an oxide-fueled sodium fast reactor that are designed exclusively for burning the americium and higher mass actinide component of light water reactor spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The associated gamma and neutron radioactivity, as well as thermal heat, associated with decay of these actinides may significantly complicate fuel handling and fabrication of recycled fast reactor fuel. The objective of using targets is to isolate in a smaller number of assemblies these concentrations of higher actinides, thus reducing the volume of fuel having more rigorous handling requirements or a more complicated fabrication process. This is in contrast to homogeneous recycle where all recycled actinides are distributed among all fuel assemblies. Several heterogeneous core geometries were evaluated to determine the fewest target assemblies required to burn these actinides without violating a set of established fuel performance criteria.