Investigation of UO2 fuel efficiency for ABV small modular reactor

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, small modular reactors have received considerable attention in various countries due to having some capabilities such as small dimensions. The ABV reactor is a small modular reactor with a power of 45 MWth. For this reactor, various applications such as use as a desalination plant, source of electrical and thermal energy, etc. have been considered. In this reactor, an unconventional metal fuel called silumin with 16.5% enrichment and a cycle length of 3000 days has been used. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the performance of conventional UO2 fuel while maintaining the initial cycle length as the main fuel of ABV reactor. To achieve this purpose, the performance of UO2 fuel with enriches of 8%, 10%, 12%, 14%, and 16% with different percentages of Gd2O3 has been investigated. To perform the calculations, the RELAP5 thermohydraulic code and the PARCS neutronic code have been coupled by using a Parallel Virtual Machine, and the reactor core quantities included: effective multiplication factor, relative power distribution, feedback coefficients, plutonium and uranium isotope concentrations, axial and radial temperature distribution of fuel rod, heat flux and DNBR have been calculated and is within an acceptable range for this design.