Viability of uranium nitride fueled high-conversion PWR

Andrews, Nathan; Shirvan, Koroush; Kazimi, Mujid S.

doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2014.07.015

Cited by 4 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Therefore, alternative fuels such as uranium nitride and carbide were considered as applicable options. The thermal conductivity of UN, 15 UN, and UC fuels is much higher than oneof UO 2 fuel. Hence, the temperature of fuel does not increase significantly compared to UO 2 fuel, which is very important in terms of safety.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Some researcheswereperformed on single-ligand ceramic fuels as a substitution of two ligand fuel (UO 2 ) for various reactors such as conventional boiling water reactors [12], Resource-renewable boilingwater reactor (RBWR) [13], the supercritical water reactor [14], and high conversion PWR design [15]. Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) [16] was developed by Russia after the Fukushima accident.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Natural nitrogen including 14 N and 15 N isotopes was used in UN fuel. Since the absorption cross-section of 14 N is higher than that of 15 N, 14 N absorbs neutrons parasitically and converts them to 14 C [13]. 14 C is a longlived radioactive isotope and is considered as a poison for the neutron economy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…14 C is a longlived radioactive isotope and is considered as a poison for the neutron economy. Therefore, enriched 15 N was proposed as a nitride fuel. Minor isotope 15 N with the abundance of 0.366% should be enriched between 99.5% to 99.9% which is an expensive process.In [20] the authors show thatenrichment cost of 15 Ncan be reduced by ion exchange chromatography separation method.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Saadi et al, presented the neutronic and thermo-hydraulic calculations for UO 2 , UN, 15 UN, and UC fuels for the US-APWR reactor as an advanced third generation reactor design [11]. In this study the MCNPX2.6 code was used to calculate the cycle length, the excess reactivity, the neutron spectrum, and the 239 Pu build-up.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neutronic analysis of alternative ceramic fuels in the next generation of VVER-1000/V446 reactor

Rahimi,

Heidari,

Kheradmand Saadi

et al. 2023

Phys. Scr.

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One of the most important issues in nuclear fuel management is burnup increase, which impacts significantly on the reactor cycle length. Burnup enlargement specifically leads to reducing the cost of electricity generation and increasing efficiency. In the present study, the neutronic analysis of some alternative ceramic fuels includingUN, 15UN, and UChas been performedthe VVER-1000/V446 reactor, comparing with the conventional UO2. Being single-ligand, the alternative fuels’ density of heavy metals such as uranium is greater than UO2’s one. Therefore, the absorption and fissionamounts in thesefuels will be higher than theones in UO2 fuel. By modellingVVER-1000/V446 reactor with MCNPX2.6 Monte Carlo code, we showed that the excess reactivity value for UC fuel (169.173 ∆K/K) increased compared to UO2 fuel (165.526). Due to the ultra-high burnup, the reactor cycle length is 398 days for 15UN fuel, while it is 270, 308, and 130 days for UO2, UC, and UN fuels, respectively, and has increased by 47%. Therefore, the use of alternative fuels has advantages like plant construction cost reduction.excess reactivity, discharge burn up, making them suitable substitution of conventional UO2 for the next generation of LWRs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%