Analysis of fuel rejuvenation times in a fusion breeder reactor fuelled with a mixture of uranium-thorium oxides for the CANDU reactor

Abstract

1 Tech nol ogy Fac ulty, Cumhuriyet Uni ver sity, Sivas, Tur key 2 En gi neer ing Fac ulty, Erciyes Uni ver sity, Kayseri, Tur key Sci en tific pa per http://doi.org/10.2298/NTRP1703193BThis study pres ents the de ter mi na tion of fuel re ju ve na tion times in a D-T fu sion breeder re actor fu elled with a mix ture of nat UO 2 and ThO 2 for multi-re use of nu clear fu els in CANDU-37 re ac tors. To de ter mine the ef fect of tho rium on the fuel en rich ment and re ju ve na tion times, neutronic anal y ses are per formed by in creas ing the per cent age of ThO 2 in the fuel mix ture from 10 to 35. The time-de pend ent neutronic cal cu la tions are car ried out in three stages. In the first stage, which is the fuel en rich ment or re ju ve na tion pro cess in the fu sion breeder re actor, the subcritical cal cu la tions of the fu sion breeder re ac tor fu elled with the fuel mix tures are per formed by us ing the MCNPX 2.7/CIN DER un der a fu sion neu tron wall load ing of 1 MWm -2 , cor re spond ing to neu tron flux of 4.444·10 13 cm -2 s -1 (en ergy of ev ery fu sion neu tron is 14.1 MeV). In the sec ond stage, which is the ther mal re ac tor anal y sis, the fuel rods en riched at the end of the first stage are placed in the CANDU-37 re ac tor, and the crit i cal calcu la tions of this re ac tor are per formed by us ing MCNPX 2.7 and MONTEBURNS codes sep a rately. The nu mer i cal re sults show that the neutronic val ues ob tained from both codes are very near each other. The third stage is the two-year cool ing pro cess of CANDU spent fu els. The val ues ob tained by nu mer i cal cal cu la tions show that this fu sion breeder re ac tor is self-suf fi cient in terms of tri tium and has a high per for mance in terms of en ergy mul ti pli cation as well as fuel re ju ve na tion and tho rium uti li za tion.Key words: fu sion breeder re ac tor, fis sile breed ing, fuel en rich ment, fuel re ju ve na tion, tho rium uti li za tion, CANDU re ac tor G. Bakir, et al.: Anal y sis of Fuel Re ju ve na tion Times in a Fu sion Breeder .

Analysis of thorium and transuranium utilization in a small modular reactor

“…In our pre vi ous stud ies [14][15][16][17][18], the uti li za tion of var i ous nu clear-spent fu els and tho rium fer tile fu els were an a lyzed in sev eral subcritical nu clear re ac tors to re ju ve nate or en rich them. As for the pres ent study, unlike them, the ef fec tive us abil ity of PWR-MOX spent fuel and tho rium fer tile fuel in an SMR op er at ing under crit i cal mode is in ves ti gated in terms of en ergy gen er a tion.…”

Verification and application of SuperMC3.3 to lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor

“…The IAEA bench mark prob lem [20] was de rived from the 900 MWt RBEC-M re ac tor core de sign, proposed by the Rus sia Re search Cen ter Kurchatov In stitute (RRC KI). Re ac tor so lu tions, in clud ing hex ag o nal fuel as sem blies (FA), lat eral and ax ial blan kets, wide fuel rod lat tices, and high 15 N en rich ment, fa cil i tate im prove ment of breed ing pa ram e ters and re ac tiv ity effects [21]. The R-Z model with di men sional pa ram eters (in cen ti me ters) of the RBEC-M bench mark is shown in fig.…”