Development of Hydride Absorber for Fast Reactor—Application of Hafnium Hydride to Control Rod of Large Fast Reactor—

Iwasaki, Tomohiko; Konashi, Kenji

doi:10.1080/18811248.2007.9711595

Cited by 24 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The control rods move together to control the core reactivity. Hafnium (Hf) is selected as an absorber material due to its outstanding physical properties under transportation or movement and a high absorption cross section which almost does not decrease even during long‐term operation (as the hafnium isotopes formed under irradiation also have a high neutron‐capture cross section). However, the main drawbacks of this material in the rod design are that Hf is heavy and expensive.…”

Section: The Design Strategy Of the Conceptual Corementioning

confidence: 99%

Core design of long‐cycle small modular lead‐cooled fast reactor

et al. 2018

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Summary A core design of small modular liquid‐metal fast reactor (SMLFR) cooled by lead‐bismuth eutectic (LBE) was developed for power reactors. The main design constraint on this reactor is a size constraint: The core needs to be small enough so that (1) it can be transported in a spent nuclear fuel (SNF) cask to meet the electricity demands in remote areas and off‐grid locations or so that (2) it can be used as a power source on board of nuclear icebreaker ships. To satisfy this design requirement, the active core of the reactor is 1 m in height and 1.45 m in diameter. The reactor is fueled with natural and 13.86% low‐enriched uranium nitride (UN), as determined through an optimization study. The reactor was designed to achieve a thermal power of 37.5 MW with an assumption of 40% thermal efficiency by employing an advanced energy conversion system based on supercritical carbon dioxide (S‐CO2) as working fluid, in which the Brayton cycle can achieve higher conversion efficiencies and lower costs compared to the Rankine cycle. The outer region of the core with low‐enriched uranium (LEU) performs the function of core ignition. The center region plays the role of a breeding blanket to increase the core lifetime for long cycle operation. The core working fluid inlet and outlet temperatures are 300°C and 422°C, respectively. The primary coolant circulation is driven by an electromagnetic pump. Core performance characteristics were analyzed for isotopic inventory, criticality, radial and axial power profiles, shutdown margins (SDM), reactivity feedback coefficients, and integral reactivity parameters of the quasi‐static reactivity balance. It is confirmed through depletion calculations with the fast reactor analysis code system Argonne Reactor Computation (ARC) that the designed reactor can be operated for 30 years without refueling. Preliminary thermal‐hydraulic analysis at normal operation is also performed and confirms that the fuel and cladding temperatures are within normal operation range. The safety analysis performed with the ARC code system and the UNIST Monte Carlo code MCS shows that the conceptual core is favorable in terms of self‐controllability, which is the first step towards inherent safety.

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Section: The Design Strategy Of the Conceptual Corementioning

confidence: 99%

Core design of long‐cycle small modular lead‐cooled fast reactor

et al. 2018

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“…However, the high cost limited the metal hydride's application as a radiation shield. Metal hydrides were also proposed for use in reactivity control elements for fast-spectrum nuclear reactors to facilitate thermalization and subsequent absorption of neutrons [9]. Furthermore, variation of hydride temperature would provide attendant reversible changes in the equilibrium concentration of hydrogen, affecting and reducing the reactivity [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical and Thermomechanical Properties of Yttrium Hydride from Large Scale Bulk Metal Hydriding Furnace

Hu¹,

Schappel²,

Trofimov³

et al. 2020

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“…There are many studies [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] for the application of moderator in fast reactors. When the moderator material is mixed with absorber or long-life fission products (LLFPs) in the fast reactor core, it will offer many advantages in core performances such as an increase in control rod worth or transmutation rate of LLFP [1][2][3][4][5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has many experiences in fast reactor plant applications and designs including the shield of KNK-2 [9] in Germany and that of large fast reactor designs in Japan. An application of a hydride absorber as a control rod material in a fast reactor has been studied [7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of Core Performance by Introduction of Moderators in a Blanket Region of Fast Reactors

Wakabayashi

2013

Science and Technology of Nuclear Installations

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An application of deuteride moderator for fast reactor cores is proposed for power flattening that can mitigate thermal spikes and alleviate the decrease in breeding ratio, which sometimes occurs when hydrogen moderator is applied as a moderator. Zirconium deuteride is employed in a form of pin arrays at the inner most rows of radial blanket fuel assemblies, which works as a reflector in order to flatten the radial power distribution in the outer core region of MONJU. The power flattening can be utilized to increase core average burn-up by increasing operational time. The core characteristics have been evaluated with a continuous-energy model Monte Carlo code MVP and the JENDL-3.3 cross-section library. The result indicates that the discharged fuel burn-up can be increased by about 7% relative to that of no moderator in the blanket region due to the power flattening when the number of deuteride moderator pins is 61. The core characteristics and core safety such as void reactivity, Doppler coefficient, and reactivity insertion that occurred at dissolution of deuteron were evaluated. It was clear that the serious drawback did not appear from the viewpoints of the core characteristics and core safety.

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Development of Hydride Absorber for Fast Reactor—Application of Hafnium Hydride to Control Rod of Large Fast Reactor—

Cited by 24 publications

References 7 publications

Core design of long‐cycle small modular lead‐cooled fast reactor

Core design of long‐cycle small modular lead‐cooled fast reactor

Physical and Thermomechanical Properties of Yttrium Hydride from Large Scale Bulk Metal Hydriding Furnace

Improvement of Core Performance by Introduction of Moderators in a Blanket Region of Fast Reactors

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