Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors

Technical Report · Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1183773· OSTI ID:1183773

Greenspan, Ehud ^[1]; Gorman, Phillip M. ^[1]; Bogetic, Sandra ^[1]; Seifried, Jeffrey E. ^[1]; Zhang, Guanheng ^[1]; Varela, Christopher R. ^[1]; Fratoni, Massimiliano ^[1]; Vijic, Jasmina J. ^[1]; Downar, Thomas ^[2]; Hall, Andrew ^[2]; Ward, Andrew ^[2]; Jarrett, Michael ^[2]; Wysocki, Aaron ^[2]; Xu, Yunlin ^[2]; Kazimi, Mujid ^[3]; Shirvan, Koroush ^[3]; Mieloszyk, Alexander ^[3]; Todosow, Michael ^[4]; Brown, Nicolas ^[4]; Cheng, Lap ^[4]

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1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
4. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

The primary objectives of this project are to: Perform a pre-conceptual design of a core for an alternative to the Hitachi proposed fuel-self- sustaining RBWR-AC, to be referred to as a RBWR-Th. The use of thorium fuel is expected to assure negative void coefficient of reactivity (versus positive of the RBWR-AC) and improve reactor safety; Perform a pre-conceptual design of an alternative core to the Hitachi proposed LWR TRU transmuting RBWR-TB2, to be referred to as the RBWR-TR. In addition to improved safety, use of thorium for the fertile fuel is expected to improve the TRU transmutation effectiveness; Compare the RBWR-Th and RBWR-TR performance against that of the Hitachi RBWR core designs and sodium cooled fast reactor counterparts - the ARR and ABR; and, Perform a viability assessment of the thorium-based RBWR design concepts to be identified along with their associated fuel cycle, a technology gap analysis, and a technology development roadmap. A description of the work performed and of the results obtained is provided in this Overview Report and, in more detail, in the Attachments. The major findings of the study are summarized.

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1183773
• Report Number(s): DOE/NEUP-11-3023; 11-3023; TRN: US1500407
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
REACTOR SAFETY
VOID COEFFICIENT
THORIUM
SODIUM COOLED REACTORS
DESIGN
REACTOR CORES
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS
NUCLEAR FUELS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
FUEL CYCLE
COMMERCIALIZATION
PERFORMANCE
TRANSMUTATION
BWR TYPE REACTORS