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Title: Sustained Recycle in Light Water and Sodium-Cooled Reactors

Abstract

From a physics standpoint, it is feasible to sustain recycle of used fuel in either thermal or fast reactors. This paper examines multi-recycle potential performance by considering three recycling approaches and calculating several fuel cycle parameters, including heat, gamma, and neutron emission of fresh fuel; radiotoxicity of waste; and uranium utilization. The first recycle approach is homogeneous mixed oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies in a light water reactor (LWR). The transuranic portion of the MOX was varied among Pu, NpPu, NpPuAm, or all-TRU. (All-TRU means all isotopes through Cf-252.) The Pu case was allowed to go to 10% Pu in fresh fuel, but when the minor actinides were included, the transuranic enrichment was kept below 8% to satisfy the expected void reactivity constraint. The uranium portion of the MOX was enriched uranium. That enrichment was increased (to as much as 6.5%) to keep the fuel critical for a typical LWR irradiation. The second approach uses heterogeneous inert matrix fuel (IMF) assemblies in an LWR - a mix of IMF and traditional UOX pins. The uranium-free IMF fuel pins were Pu, NpPu, NpPuAm, or all-TRU. The UOX pins were limited to 4.95% U-235 enrichment. The number of IMF pins was set somore » that the amount of TRU in discharged fuel from recycle N (from both IMF and UOX pins) was made into the new IMF pins for recycle N+1. Up to 60 of the 264 pins in a fuel assembly were IMF. The assembly-average TRU content was 1-6%. The third approach uses fast reactor oxide fuel in a sodium-cooled fast reactor with transuranic conversion ratio of 0.50 and 1.00. The transuranic conversion ratio is the production of transuranics divided by destruction of transuranics. The FR at CR=0.50 is similar to the CR for the MOX case. The fast reactor cases had a transuranic content of 33-38%, higher than IMF or MOX.« less

Authors:
; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
DOE - NE
OSTI Identifier:
991905
Report Number(s):
INL/CON-10-20159
TRN: US1007587
DOE Contract Number:  
DE-AC07-05ID14517
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: 11th Information Exchange Meeting on Actinide and Fission Product Partitioning and Transmutation,San Francisco,11/01/2010,11/05/2010
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS; ACTINIDES; CONVERSION RATIO; ENRICHED URANIUM; FAST REACTORS; FISSION PRODUCTS; FUEL ASSEMBLIES; FUEL CYCLE; FUEL PINS; IRRADIATION; NEUTRON EMISSION; OXIDES; PERFORMANCE; PHYSICS; PRODUCTION; RECYCLING; TRANSMUTATION; URANIUM; WATER; advanced fuel cycles; LWRs; recycling; reprocessing; SFRs

Citation Formats

Piet, Steven J, Bays, Samuel E, Pope, Michael A, and Youinou, Gilles J. Sustained Recycle in Light Water and Sodium-Cooled Reactors. United States: N. p., 2010. Web.
Piet, Steven J, Bays, Samuel E, Pope, Michael A, & Youinou, Gilles J. Sustained Recycle in Light Water and Sodium-Cooled Reactors. United States.
Piet, Steven J, Bays, Samuel E, Pope, Michael A, and Youinou, Gilles J. 2010. "Sustained Recycle in Light Water and Sodium-Cooled Reactors". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/991905.
@article{osti_991905,
title = {Sustained Recycle in Light Water and Sodium-Cooled Reactors},
author = {Piet, Steven J and Bays, Samuel E and Pope, Michael A and Youinou, Gilles J},
abstractNote = {From a physics standpoint, it is feasible to sustain recycle of used fuel in either thermal or fast reactors. This paper examines multi-recycle potential performance by considering three recycling approaches and calculating several fuel cycle parameters, including heat, gamma, and neutron emission of fresh fuel; radiotoxicity of waste; and uranium utilization. The first recycle approach is homogeneous mixed oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies in a light water reactor (LWR). The transuranic portion of the MOX was varied among Pu, NpPu, NpPuAm, or all-TRU. (All-TRU means all isotopes through Cf-252.) The Pu case was allowed to go to 10% Pu in fresh fuel, but when the minor actinides were included, the transuranic enrichment was kept below 8% to satisfy the expected void reactivity constraint. The uranium portion of the MOX was enriched uranium. That enrichment was increased (to as much as 6.5%) to keep the fuel critical for a typical LWR irradiation. The second approach uses heterogeneous inert matrix fuel (IMF) assemblies in an LWR - a mix of IMF and traditional UOX pins. The uranium-free IMF fuel pins were Pu, NpPu, NpPuAm, or all-TRU. The UOX pins were limited to 4.95% U-235 enrichment. The number of IMF pins was set so that the amount of TRU in discharged fuel from recycle N (from both IMF and UOX pins) was made into the new IMF pins for recycle N+1. Up to 60 of the 264 pins in a fuel assembly were IMF. The assembly-average TRU content was 1-6%. The third approach uses fast reactor oxide fuel in a sodium-cooled fast reactor with transuranic conversion ratio of 0.50 and 1.00. The transuranic conversion ratio is the production of transuranics divided by destruction of transuranics. The FR at CR=0.50 is similar to the CR for the MOX case. The fast reactor cases had a transuranic content of 33-38%, higher than IMF or MOX.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/991905}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010},
month = {Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010}
}

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