Fuel composition heterogeneity for refueling scheme of large reactivity insertion

Journal Article · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:411758

Choi, Hangbok; Rhee, Bo W; Park, Hyunsoo ^[1]

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1. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejon (Korea, Democratic People`s Republic of)

In the DUPIC fuel cycle, the spent pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel is directly used in the Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactor after a dry process (OREOX). Thus the DUPIC fuel composition varies depending on the discharge condition of spent PWR fuel, resulting in relatively large local power perturbations during the on-power refueling in CANDU. A previous study of a two-bundle shift-refueling scheme has shown that the fuel composition heterogeneity effect is reduced appreciably when the spent PWR fuel is blended with fresh UO{sub 2}. If the number of bundles refueled at a time increases, the amount of reactivity insertion into the CANDU core increases locally, which results in the local peak power approaching the operating limit. To lighten the refueling machine load and reduce the coolant loss during the refueling, it is more favorable to increase the number of bundles refueled at a time. In this study, we have studied the heterogeneity effect for a four-bundle shift-refueling scheme in which four fuel bundles in a channel are shifted per each refueling operation.

• OSTI ID: 411758
• Report Number(s): CONF-951006--
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 73; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
CANDU TYPE REACTORS
FUEL CYCLE
FUEL ELEMENT CLUSTERS
REACTIVITY
REACTOR FUELING
SPENT FUELS