Design Feasible Area on Water Cooled Thorium Breeder Reactor in Equilibrium States
- Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550 (Japan)
Thorium as supplied fuel has good candidate for fuel material if it is converted into fissile material {sup 233}U which shows superior characteristics in the thermal region. The Shippingport reactor used {sup 233}U-Th fuel system, and the molten salt breeder reactor (MSBR) project showed that breeding is possible in a thermal spectrum. In the present study, feasibility of water cooled thorium breeder reactor is investigated. The key properties such as flux, {eta} value, criticality and breeding performances are evaluated for different moderator to fuel ratios (MFR) and burn-ups. The results show the feasibility of breeding for different MFR and burn-ups. The required {sup 233}U enrichment is about 2% - 9% as charge fuel. The lower MFR and the higher enrichment of {sup 233}U are preferable to improve the average burn-up; however the design feasible window is shrunk. This core shows the design feasible window especially in relation to MFR with negative void reactivity coefficient. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- The ASME Foundation, Inc., Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5990 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 20995595
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 14. international conference on nuclear engineering (ICONE 14), Miami, FL (United States), 17-20 Jul 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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