Pin-by-pin minor actinides transmutation analysis for heterogeneous minor actinides target loaded core by reconstruction of neutron spectrum

Abstract

A fast reactor named as minor actinides target loaded core has been developed for effective minor actinides transmutation. The core has a number of minor actinides target assemblies, which contain zirconium-hydride pins. Therefore, the neutron spectrum strongly depends on the location of the fuel pin in the core. In order to evaluate the amount of pin-by-pin minor actinides transmutation accurately, a reconstruction method is proposed. The method reconstructs the pin-by-pin neutron spectrum by combining results of the assembly calculation and the core calculation. The reference Monte Carlo calculation is carried out for verification of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method provides an accurate pin-by-pin neutron spectrum and an accurate amount of the pin-by-pin minor actinides transmutation compared with conventional assembly-wise evaluation.