The Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique Spin Program: Minor Actinide Fuel and Target Aspects

Prunier, C.; Guérin, Yannick; Faugere, J.L.; Cocuaud, N.; Adnet, Jean-Marc

doi:10.13182/nt97-a35420

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Because irradiated commercial nuclear reactor fuel is being reprocessed in Japan, France, and China, investigators in these countries have been active in pursuing partitioning technology options. Several references (ANS, 1993;Prunier et al, 1997;Cohen, 2000;NN, 2002) provide much additional detail concerning the incentives for and status of the development of partitioning and transmutation technology. Particular attention is called to an excellent summary article on actinide partitioning technology .…”

Section: Separation and Purification Of Principal Isotopesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Americium

Runde

Schulz

The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements

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Section: Separation and Purification Of Principal Isotopesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Americium

Runde

Schulz

The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements

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“…Uranium Oxide is considered due to the irradiation performance database established for SFR Mixed Oxide Fuels (MOX), which is the current composition choice for the RH-SFR driver fuel. Minor actinide carrying UOX targets were irradiated in the Phénix reactor during the 1980's during the SUPERFACT experiments of the Séparation-Incineration (SPIN) program [7]. This program irradiated low (2%) and high (20%) enrichments of AmO 2 and NpO 2 in a UOX matrix.…”

Section: Target and Fuel Matrixmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this swelling did not lead to any pellet interaction with the cladding. Magnesium Oxide also has a high thermal conductivity but has been reported to lose 50% of its initial thermal conductivity after being exposed to a fast fluence of only 1.0×10 22 cm -2 [7]. However, MgO exhibits order of magnitude higher thermal conductivities than UOX for temperatures below 1200 K [9].…”

Section: Target and Fuel Matrixmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bays¹,

Ferrer²,

Pope³

et al. 2008

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Executive SummaryThe 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. The DIF3D/REBUS code from Argonne National Laboratory was used to perform the core physics and accompanying fuel cycle calculations in support of this work. Using the REBUS code, each core design was evaluated at the equilibrium cycle condition.These studies were performed using the Advanced Burner Reactor as the reference core and assembly design. In the reference homogeneous core, all transuranics are recovered and returned to the driver fuel assemblies. Alternatively, in the heterogeneous cases Np+Pu was recovered and returned to driver fuel while Am+Cm+Bk+Cf was recovered and put into the target assemblies. An external supply of transuranics having a SNF isotopic vector was added to the recovered material after each cycle to compensate for transuranics destroyed by fission. In order to give a fair comparison between the heterogeneous target cases and the homogeneous reference case, the ratio of Am+Cm+Bk+Cf to Np+Pu in the external supply of transuranics was held constant and equal to the actual ratio found in SNF. Because this ratio was always respected in conjunction with a constant thermal power rating and a relatively invariant conversion ratio, the external makeup feed rate of each isotope was also relatively invariant throughout this study. Therefore, an equal comparison could be made between the reference homogeneous core and all heterogeneous designs.For this initial study, the same assembly design used by the driver fuel was adopted for the transmutation target assemblies. Also investigated was the effect of using uranium oxide (UOX) versus fertile-free magnesium oxide (MgO) as the carrying matrix for the transmutation target composition.Four core geometries with target assemblies were evaluated in this study, ranging from a 6-target case having one target assembly at each corner of the hexagonal core, to a 48-target case where the entire first row of radial reflectors a...

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“…Highly-moderated reactors consume more plutonium, while producing less actinides. Since the two main actinides, plutonium and americium, present significant resonances at thermal energies, the moderation ratio (water volume to fuel volume) becomes and important parameter for the core design of PWRs with 100% MOX fuel [3,7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Icone15-10105 Inert Matrix Fuel Assembly as an Option for the Laguna Verde NPP Fuel Reloads

Hernandez-Lopez

Ortíz-Villafuerte

2007

ICONE

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The availability of large amounts of reactor and weapons grade plutonium in the world shows the necessity of anticipating situations for the use and disposition of it. Because Light Water Reactors (LWRs) prevail on the stage of electric energy generation by nuclear power, it is important to take into account the potential of these reactors to reduce the plutonium inventory. Several studies performed in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) show that reactor and weapons grade plutonium can effectively be burned in these reactors, in assemblies with fertile-free fuel, and maintaining reactivity control and other safety issues at least comparable to those related to the standard fuel normally used.The Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, currently carries out research on diverse alternatives to use Inert Matrix Fuel (IMF) as an option to fuel reloads for the two BWR/5 Units at the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant. This work presents first the neutronic analysis of a fuel assembly conceptual design, which contains a combination of plutonium oxide (in an inert matrix) fuel rods, uranium oxide fuel rods, and uranium oxide with gadolinia fuel rods. Then, simulations for three different fuel assembly reload options were performed for Unit 1. Results of reactor operation from the different reload options are presented.The results obtained with reload fuel using inert matrix fuel assemblies observe a decrease in the length of operation cycle in the plant. However, the mass of uranium used is minor to require for make all fuel assemblies.

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The Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique Spin Program: Minor Actinide Fuel and Target Aspects

Cited by 8 publications

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Americium

Americium

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

Icone15-10105 Inert Matrix Fuel Assembly as an Option for the Laguna Verde NPP Fuel Reloads

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