Abstract
U<sub><em>W</em></sub>B1 depletion code is being developed as a fast computational tool for the study of burnable absorbers in University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Research of fuel depletion aims at development and introduction of advanced types of burnable absorbers in nuclear fuel. Burnable absorbers compensate for the initial excess reactivity and consequently allow for lower power peaking factors and longer fuel cycles with higher fuel enrichments. The paper describes the depletion calculations of CANDU, PWR and SFR nuclear fuel doped with rare earth oxides as burnable absorber. Uniform distribution of burnable absorber in the fuel is assumed. Based on performed depletion calculations, rare earth oxides are divided into two groups, suitable burnable absorbers and poisoning absorbers. Moreover, basic economic comparison is performed based on actual stock prices.
Highlights
UWB1 nuclear fuel depletion code [1, 4] is being developed as a fast fuel depletion code to conduct burnable absorber research
Total number of 9 out of 16 rare earth oxides are marked as burnable absorbers for both CANDU and PWR fuels, namely 21-Sc, 60-Nd, 62-Sm, 63-Eu, 64Gd, 66-Dy, 67-Ho, 68-Er and 69-Tm
Total number of 4 out of 16 rare earth oxides are marked as burnable absorbers only for CANDU fuel, but behaves as poisoning absorbers for PWR fuel
Summary
UWB1 nuclear fuel depletion code [1, 4] is being developed as a fast fuel depletion code to conduct burnable absorber research. Research of advanced types of burnable absorbers (BA) in nuclear fuel requires fast depletion code that would be able to calculate broad range of elements, nuclides or their combination. Developed UWB1 depletion code comprises of transport and burnup solver that works in 2sPC depletion scheme in order to perform fast calculation of nuclear fuel depletion. In order to achieve high precision in UWB1 code, Monte Carlo solver for lattice cell calculations is used to solve transport equation. Bateman equations are solved in special depletion scheme that relies on nuclide-based predictorcorrector method in both transport and burnup part of fuel depletion. Basic economic comparison is performed based on current stock prices
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