Increasing the power density when using inert matrix fuels to reduce production of transuranics
- University of Texas, 1 University Station C2200, Austin TX 78715-0162 (United States)
Reducing the production of transuranics is a goal of most advanced nuclear fuel cycles. One way to do this is to recycle the transuranics into the same reactors that are currently producing them using an inert matrix fuel. In previous work we have modeled such a reactor where 72%, of the core is comprised of standard enriched uranium fuel pins, with the remaining 28% fuel made from Yttria stabilized zirconium, in which transuranics are loaded. A key feature of this core is that all of the transuranics produced by the uranium fuel assemblies are later burned in inert matrix fuel assemblies. It has been shown that this system can achieve reductions in transuranic waste of more than 86%. The disadvantage of such a system is that the core power rating must be significantly lower than a standard pressurized water reactor. One reason for the lower power is that high burnup of the uranium fuel precludes a critical level of reactivity at the end of the campaign. Increasing the uranium enrichment and changing the pin pitch are two ways to increase burnup while maintaining criticality. In this paper we use MCNPX and a linear reactivity model to quantify the effect of these two parameters on the end of campaign reactivity. Importantly, we show that in the region of our proposed reactor, enrichment increases core reactivity by 0.02 per percent uranium 235 and pin pitch increases reactivity by 0.02 per mm. Reactivity is lost at a rate of 0.005 per MWd/kgIHM uranium burnup. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22264163
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: GLOBAL 2013: International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference - Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads, Salt Lake City, UT (United States), 29 Sep - 3 Oct 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 8 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of GLOBAL 2013: International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference - Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads| 1633 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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