Preliminary neutronic analyses for annular VHTR with different coated fuel particle designs

Abstract

The purpose of the present work is to determine the neutronic characteristics of annular cylindrical prismatic Very High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (VHTR) with different advanced fuel designs. The study includes detailed neutronic investigations of the eight types of TRISO (containing SiC layer) and TRIZO (containing ZrC layer) fuel particles for annular VHTR core. All calculations were performed using continuous energy Monte Carlo code MVP2.0 and MVPBURN with JENDL4.0 nuclear data library. The obtained results indicated that SiC + PyC and PyC layers in TRISO fuel appeared to be not excellent choice for the annular VHTR core due to its shorter operation year and, lower fuel burnup. The annular cylindrical prismatic core fueled with TRIZO fuel particle shows good neutronic characteristics compared to those designed with other TRISO fuel particles.