Optimum power determination and comparison of multi-pass and OTTO fuel management schemes of HTGR-based PeLUIt reactor

Abstract

A co-generation reactor based on pebble-bed High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) has been designed. This study focuses on designing a modular nuclear reactor based on pebble bed high-temperature reactor (Electric Power and Industrial Hot Steam Plant/Pembangkit Listrik dan Uap Panas Industri, abbreviated as PeLUIt), an upgrade from Indonesia’s 10 MW Experimental Power Reactor (Reaktor Daya Eksperimen, RDE). PeLUIt is proposed as a solution for electricity and co-generation application. The 5-pass and Once-Through-Then-Out (OTTO) refueling scheme for the PeLUIt has been analyzed. PEBBED was used for equilibrium core calculations, whereas COMBINE7 was used for spectrum calculations utilizing ENDF/B-VII.0 as nuclear data. Based on the results, it can be inferred that the PeLUIt co-generation reactor analysis with an optimal power of 40 MWt is produced by increasing fuel intake into the core while retaining core geometry and fuel design. In this study, burn-up levels for each refueling scheme are also analyzed, and the value for OTTO is lower than 5-pass refueling schemes. In addition, the Depressurized Loss of Forced Cooling (DLOFC) accident scenario for both types of refueling schemes was also analyzed. The result showed that the OTTO refueling scheme has a higher safety level than the 5-pass refueling scheme.