Comparative Safety Physics Parameters in the Advanced Fuels Critical Assemblies
Conference
·
OSTI ID:1973464
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
The interest in the use of advanced fuels (carbide and advanced oxide) in LMFBR`s stems from the projected improvement in breeding properties over conventional mixed-oxide fuels. This improvement in breeding is a consequence of the higher fuel volume fractions achievable in the advanced fuels designs and the concomitant harder neutron spectrum and lower enrichment. The impact of these changes, not only on the breeding properties but also on the safety physics parameters (238U Doppler effect, sodium void effect, and 10B control rod worth), has a strong bearing on whether these fuels are ultimately adopted. A set of key integral physics parameters were measured in a series of advanced fuels critical assemblies constructed on ZPR-9 to assess the relative safety and breeding properties of candidate advanced fuels. The experimental results confirmed the projected improvement in the breeding properties in advanced fuels cores relative to current oxide LMFBR cores and revealed that the accompanying changes in the safety-related physics parameters were generally large and of unfavorable sign. Specifically, it was found that relative to the ZPR-6, assembly 7 benchmark "current mixed-oxide" values for normalized parameters, the central 238U Doppler worth decreased by 20-40%, the central 10B worth decreased by 10 to 20% and the central (non-leakage component) sodium void reactivity worth increased by 30 to 40% in the advanced fuels compositions. It was shown that the C/E values on safety parameters in the advanced fuels compositions are of comparable size to those in current oxide assemblies.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-26
- OSTI ID:
- 1973464
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-780401, 493-504; ZPR-TM-312
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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