Burnup Calculation Study of Pebble Bed Equilibrium Core

Abstract

Reaktor Daya Eksperimental (RDE) is a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) producing a 10 MW thermal with a pebble bed fuels which being developed by BATAN. The purpose of this paper is to study the burnup distribution and characteristic in the equilibrium core for different multipass recirculation method. Understanding the reactor physics, in particular the burnup, is important for optimum design and safety analysis of nuclear reactor. Related with the design approval phase of RDE, this study provides a design data which needed for the RDE’s safety analysis report, e.g. fuel pebble performance analysis. Analysis in this study was performed using PEBBED diffusion code. PEBBED is designed to solve the neutronics and thermalhydraulics parameter cases for high temperature pebble bed reactors for different fuel recirculation including once-through-then-out (OTTO) and multipass scheme. The reactor core calculation was performed by applying multipass scheme with variation from 5 passes up to 15 passes. With energy and power as inputs, the calculations produce the burnup fraction at the end of the cycle and the fast and thermal neutron fluxes in 8 energy groups. The calculation results showed that the lowest 5 passes fuel recirculation pattern has the highest and lowest minimum discharged burnup value. This is related to the average power distribution in the core which means more passes will flatter the burnup distribution including the power distribution and also seen in the value of flux and power peaking factor produced. power peaking factor produced.