Actinide transmutation using pressurized water reactors
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Room 24-607, Cambridge MA 02139 (United States)
Burning trans-uranic elements in Combined Non-Fertile and UO{sub 2} (CONFU) PWR assemblies is evaluated. These assemblies are composed of a mix of standard UO{sub 2} fuel pins and pins made of recycled trans-uranics (TRU) in an inert matrix and are designed to fit in currently deployed PWRs. Previous studies have shown the feasibility of a CONFU-Equilibrium (CONFUE) assembly design with a net zero TRU balance. Applying appropriate limits on the safety coefficients and the peaking factor in the assembly, a CONFU-Burn-down (CONFU-B) assembly design is shown to attain a net TRU destruction in each fuel batch through at least 9 recycles. This represents a time span of nearly 100 years of in-core residence and out-of-core storage time. Three recycling strategies are considered all using a 4.5-year in core irradiation, followed by cooling and reprocessing. The three strategies are a short-term cooling (6-year) after discharge, a longer-term cooling (16.5-year) after discharge, and a strategy called Remix. The Remix strategy involves partitioning the Pu/Np after 6-year cooling for immediate recycle, and partitioning the Am/Cm for an additional 10.5-year cooling before remixing it into the next CONFU-B batch. Calculations show the CONFU-B can have a net TRU destruction of approximately 1.5 kg to 10.0 kg of TRU per TWhe depending on the recycle strategy used. This represents a net burning rate of 2-8% of the TRU loaded per assembly. Thus, LWRs are able to eventually operate in a fuel cycle system with an inventory of higher actinides much lower than that accumulated to date. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21021023
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2006 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, Reno - Nevada (United States), 4-8 Jun 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 9 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2006 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, 2734 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Management of thermal peaking factors in CONFU-B PWR assemblies using neutron poisons and tailored enrichment
Performance of Trasuranic-Loaded Fully Ceramic Micro-Encapsulated Fuel in LWRs Interim Report, Including Void Reactivity Evaluation