Core design and optimization of high performance low sodium void 1000 MWe heterogeneous oxide LMFBR cores

Conference · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:5838212

Barthold, W P; Orechwa, Y; Su, S F; Beitel, J C; Turski, R; Lam, P S.K.; Fuller, E L

Radially heterogeneous core configurations are effective means to reduce sodium void reactivity. In general, radially heterogeneous cores can be designed as tightly or loosely coupled cores with center core or center blanket arrangements. Core height, number of core regions and number of fuel pins per assembly are additional variables in an optimization of basic heterogeneous core configurations. An extensive study was carried out to optimize the core configurations for 1000 MWe LMFBRs. All cores were subject to a common set of nuclear, mechanical, and thermal-hydraulic design assumptions. They were restrained by an upper sodium void reactivity limit of $2.50 and a doubling time of approximately 15 to 18 years. The screening and optimization procedures employed lead to two core layouts which were both tightly coupled. A complete nuclear analysis of these two cores (derived from a loosely coupled configuration/derived from a tightly coupled configuration) determined the fissile inventories (4268.4/4213.4 kg at BOEC), burnups (83.90/100.7 MWd/t peak), reactivity swings (0.49/1.8% ..delta..k total), power and flux distributions for different control insertion patterns, the breeding performance (15.7/15.3 yrs CSDT), the safety parameters, such as sodium void reactivity ($2.38/$2.23 at EOEC), isothermal Doppler coefficients for both sodium-in (45.6/46.1 T dk/dT x 10/sup -4/ core at EOEC) and sodium-out conditions (28.6/28.2 T dk/dT x 10/sup -4/ core at EOEC), and the transient behavior which shows very little space-dependence during a 60 cent reactivity step insertion.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (USA); Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 5838212
• Report Number(s): IAEA-SM-244/66; CONF-790933-5
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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Breeding
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EPITHERMAL REACTORS
FAST REACTORS
FBR TYPE REACTORS
HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS
LIQUID METAL COOLED REACTORS
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OPTIMIZATION
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