Pebble fuel design for the PB-FHR
- Univ. of California Berkeley, 4155 Etcheverry Hall, MC 1720, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
This paper presents the results of parametric studies of pebble fuel that can guide the design of future PB-FHR cores. The pebble fuel designs are assessed using the following performance characteristics: burnup, reactivity feedback, transient response, timescale to reach equilibrium cycle, and protection of structural components. The performance of a thorium pebble blanket is assessed by comparing against a seed-only system and system that utilizes a graphite pebble reflector instead of a thorium blanket. This paper presents the functional requirements and a methodology to assess these fuel pebble designs. This paper identifies a feasible design space for low enriched uranium pebbles and selected a baseline pebble design for safe, economic energy generation. Furthermore, this study finds a thorium blanket does not increase the performance of the system significantly with respect to a graphite pebble reflector. Therefore, a graphite pebble reflector is recommended in the baseline full-core design to extend the lifetime of the outer solid graphite reflector to the life of plant. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22106017
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICAPP '12: 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, Chicago, IL (United States), 24-28 Jun 2012; Other Information: Country of input: France; 21 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants - ICAPP '12| 2799 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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