Abstract
The purpose of the study is to analyze the breeding ratio of a supercritical water cooled fast reactor (SCFR) and to increase the breeding core of SCFR. The sensitivities of assembly parameters, core arrangements and fuel nuclide components to the breeding ratio are analyzed. In assembly parameters, the seed fuel rod diameter has higher sensitivities to the conversion ratio (CR) than the coolant tube diameter in blanket. Increasing heavy metal fraction is good to CR improvement. The CR of SCFR also increases with a reasonable core arrangement and Pu isotope mass fraction reduction in fuel, which can achieve more negative coolant void reactivity coefficient at the same time. The breeding ratio of SCFR is 1.03128 with a new core arrangement. And the coolant void reactivity coefficient is negative, which achieves a fuel breeding in initial fuel cycle.
Highlights
Super-Critical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs) are a class of high temperature, high pressure, water-cooled reactors that operate above the thermodynamic critical point of water (374 ̊C, 22.1 MPa)
MCNP4C code is used to establish the supercritical water cooled fast reactor (SCFR) physical model to study the effects of assembly parameters, fuel nuclide components and core arrangements on reactor conversion ratio(CR) and void reactivity coefficient in initial stage of the fuel cycle fuel
Following conclusions are obtained: CR can be increased by increasing the fuel rod diameter or reducing the coolant tube diameter of seed and blanket assembly respectively; fuel rod diameter of seed has a greater impact on CR
Summary
Super-Critical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs) are a class of high temperature, high pressure, water-cooled reactors that operate above the thermodynamic critical point of water (374 ̊C, 22.1 MPa). Supercritical water-cooled fast reactor (SCFR) [16] is designed with MOX fuel and cooled by super-critical water It is functioning with relatively higher neutron energy spectrum which requires less amount of moderation so that the core design is compact in size with higher power density (294.8 W/cm3) and thermal efficiency (the coolant outlet temperature is 500 ̊C). In order to improve the breeding ratio of SCFR, abriquet fuel assembly is designed for increasing heavy metal fraction [18]. MCNP4C code is used to establish the SCFR physical model to study the effects of assembly parameters, fuel nuclide components and core arrangements on reactor conversion ratio(CR) and void reactivity coefficient in initial stage of the fuel cycle fuel (not involved burnup)
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