Safety Aspects of a PWR With an Inventive TRISO Fuel Particle Composition

Abstract

In this research paper a safety analysis has been carried out for the conceptual design of a compact sized PWR core that utilizes tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) fuel particle with an inventive composition. The use of TRISO fuel in PWR technology improves integrity of the design due to its fission fragments retention ability as this fuel provides first retention barrier within fuel itself against the release fission fragments. Hence addition of one more reliable barrier in well established PWR technology makes this design concept safer and environment friendly. The suggested TRISO fuel particle composition has a small amount of Pu-240 with 2.0 w/o in the place of U-238 which acts as reactivity suppressor. The amount of excess reactivity has been reduced significantly by using a small amount of Pu-240 in TRISO fuel which in turns reduces the number of Burnable Poison (BP) and control rods required for reactivity control and completely eliminates the requirement of soluble boron system. The suggested design operates at much lower temperature and pressure than a standard PWR power reactor because of its specific use (i.e. heating, desalination and limited power production) and the presence of TRISO fuel ensures retention of fission fragments at elevated temperatures. All reactivity coefficients were found negative for the designed core and shutdown margin has also been increased with the suggested TRISO fuel composition.