Proof of breeding in the Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR Development Program)

Technical Report · Tue Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5561162· OSTI ID:5561162

Schick, Jr., W. C.; Beaudoin, B. R.; Beggs, W. J.; Freeman, L. B.; Tessler, G.

The Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) was developed to demonstrate practical breeding while producing electrical energy in a commercial pressurized water reactor generating station. After the /sup 233/U-thorium fueled core operated successfully for five years, expended fuel from the core was assayed to prove breeding - that is, production of more fissile fuel from thorium than was expended to produce energy. This demonstrates the existence of a vast source of electrical energy potentially capable of supplying the entire national need for many centuries using potential domestic thorium. The LWBR operated for more than 29,000 effective full power hours in the Shippingport Atomic Power Station and contained more fissile fuel at the end of its five-year operational lifetime than at the beginning. Five hundred twenty-four fuel rods were randomly selected from the spent core for nondestructive assay to determine their final fissile fuel content. Two different nondestructive assay measurements were performed on each rod. Seventeen of these rods were subsequently assayed destructively to validate the nondestructive results. Two estimation methods, which agreed closely, were used to determine the fissile fuel content of the spent core. The more accurate method gave a value of 507.98 kg for the end-of-life fuel content of the core, with a total standard deviation of 0.14%. The fuel content of the beginning-of-life core was determined during core manufacture to be 501.02 kg, with a standard deviation of less than 0.04%. The increase in fissile fuel during core life was 1.39% +- 0.14%, in close agreement with prediction, thus demonstrating breeding in LWBR.

• Research Organization: Bettis Atomic Power Lab., West Mifflin, PA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC11-76PN00014
• OSTI ID: 5561162
• Report Number(s): WAPD-TM-1612; ON: DE88005093
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210500* -- Power Reactors
Breeding
210802 -- Nuclear Power Plants-- Economics-- Fuel Cycle
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDE NUCLEI
ACTINIDES
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BREEDER REACTORS
BREEDING
DATA
DESTRUCTIVE TESTING
ELEMENTS
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FISSILE MATERIALS
FISSIONABLE MATERIALS
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
FUEL ELEMENTS
FUEL RODS
HEAVY NUCLEI
INFORMATION
ISOTOPES
LWBR TYPE REACTORS
MATERIALS
MATERIALS TESTING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS
METALS
NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING
NUCLEAR FUEL CONVERSION
NUCLEI
NUMERICAL DATA
OPERATION
POST-IRRADIATION EXAMINATION
RADIOISOTOPES
REACTOR COMPONENTS
REACTOR CORES
REACTOR OPERATION
REACTORS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
STATISTICS
TESTING
THERMAL REACTORS
THORIUM
URANIUM 233
URANIUM ISOTOPES
WATER COOLED REACTORS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES