Assessment of Near-Breeding Heterogeneous Seed/Blanket Cores in Pressure-Tube Heavy Water Reactors with Thorium-Based Fuels

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:23047355

Colton, A. V.; Bromley, B. P.; Golesorkhi, S. ^[1]

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1. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, B887, 286 Plant Road, Chalk River, ON, K0J 1J0 (Canada)

To help extend uranium resources, thorium, which is three to four times as abundant as uranium, can be exploited as an alternative fertile nuclear fuel. The pressure tube heavy water reactors (PT-HWR) is an excellent mainstream technology for harnessing the energy potential in thorium due to its high neutron economy enabled by using heavy water as a moderator and coolant, and by refueling online. The PT-HWR is also capable of flexibility in fuel management, allowing the use of multiple fuel types with different refueling rates. One approach to using thorium-based fuels in PT-HWRs is to use a homogeneous core with a once-through thorium (OTT) fuel cycle, where a fissile material is mixed with thorium (such as (LEU,Th)O{sub 2} or (Pu,Th)O{sub 2}), burned in a high-conversion reactor, and then put into storage for several decades until it is economically attractive to reprocess and recycle. An alternative approach is to use a heterogeneous seed/blanket core, where the seed/driver fuel is made of ({sup 233}U,Th)O{sub 2}, and the blanket fuel is make of ThO{sub 2}, and attempt to achieve a very-high conversion ratio (CR) core, and perhaps net breeding with a self-sufficient equilibrium thorium (SSET) fuel cycle. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of various heterogeneous seed/blanket cores in a 700-MWe-class PT-HWR using ({sup 233}U,Th)O{sub 2} fuel.

• OSTI ID: 23047355
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 116; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
BREEDING
CONVERSION RATIO
COOLANTS
FISSILE MATERIALS
FUEL CYCLE
FUEL MANAGEMENT
HEAVY WATER
MODERATORS
NEUTRON FLUX
NUCLEAR FUELS
PERFORMANCE
PRESSURE TUBES
THORIUM
THORIUM OXIDES
URANIUM
URANIUM 233