Abstract
The paper considers the concept of a fast lead cooled 25MW reactor for a variety of applications, including incineration of minor actinides, production of medical radioisotopes, testing of radiation-damaged nuclear technology materials, etc. A specific feature of the proposed reactor is rather a high neutron flux of 2.6·1015 n/(cm2·s) at the core center, high average neutron energy of 0.95 MeV at the core center, and a large fraction (40%) of hard neutrons (En > 0.8 MeV). The extremely high estimated reactor parameters are achieved thanks to the small core dimensions (DxH ≈ 0.50×0.42 m2), innovative metallic fuel of the Pu-Am-Np-Zr alloy, and the 208Pb enriched lead coolant. A relatively high probability of 241Am fission (about 50%) is achieved in the reactor core’s hard spectrum, this making it possible to incinerate up to 4 kg of 241Am during one reactor campaign of 1000 effective days.
Highlights
At the present time, along with light sodium coolant, heavy lead-bismuth and lead coolants are considered for advanced fast reactors
It is shown in the paper that the 208Pb enriched lead coolant, in a combination with low moderating metal fuel, e.g. plutonium-americum-neptunium fuel (Vaganov et al 2000, Harp et al 2017), and small core dimensions (D×H ~ 0.50×0.42 m2) can provide for an extremely high average energy of neutrons at the core center, which is close to 1 MeV, that is the amount that cannot be reached in the current fast medium sodium-cooled reactors (BN-600 and BN-800) (Khorasanov and Blokhin 2012)
A concept has been proposed of a lead-cooled 25MW(th) reactor with innovative plutonium-americium-neptunium fuel (Pu-Am-Np-Zr) currently under development
Summary
Academic editor: Yury Korovin ♦ Received 13 October 2019 ♦ Accepted 22 November 2019 ♦ Published 11 March 2020.
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