Neutronic study of an innovative natural uranium–thorium based fusion–fission hybrid energy system

Abstract

An innovative design for a water cooled fusion–fission hybrid reactor (FFHR), aiming at efficiently utilizing natural uranium and thorium resources, is presented. The major objective is to study the feasibility of this concept balanced with multi-purposes, including energy gain, tritium breeding and 233U breeding. In order to improve overall neutron economy of the system, the fission blanket is designed with two types of modules, i.e. the natural uranium modules (U-modules) and thorium modules (Th-modules), which are alternately arranged in the toroidal and poloidal directions of the blanket. This innovative design is based on a simple intuition of neutron distribution: with the alternate geometrical arrangement, energy multiplication by uranium fission, tritium breeding and 233U breeding are performed separately in different sub-zones in the blanket. The uranium modules which has excellent neutron economy under the combined neutron spectrum, plays the dominant role in the energy production, neutron multiplication and tritium breeding. Excess neutrons produced by the uranium modules are then used to drive the thorium modules (which have poor neutron economy) to breed 233U fuel. Therefore, it creates a new free dimension to realize the blanket’s balanced design. The COUPLE code developed by INET of Tsinghua University is used to simulate the neutronic behavior in the blanket. The simulated results show that with the volumetric ratio of thorium modules about 0.4, the balanced design for multi purposes is achievable, with energy multiplication M⩾9, tritium breeding ratio TBR⩾1.05, and at the end of the five years refueling cycle, the 233U enrichment in thorium modules exceeding 1.0%. The neutronic analysis results also show that the preliminary design of this innovative FFHR is of great potential to utilize the bred 233U effectively after the initial fuel load of the first ten-year operation.