Abstract
The report presents an analysis of the medium-sized Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) core with Thorium-based Mixed-Oxide fuel. The introduction of Transuranics (TRU) to the fuel was to allow long-lived nuclear waste incineration. The studied core is based on the modified Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR) 1000MWth core design, which was analysed in the OECD/NEA “Benchmark for Neutronic Analysis of Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Cores with Various Fuel Types and Core Sizes”. The full-core simulations with SERPENT 2.1.31 Monte Carlo computer code and ENDF library were performed, including static criticality and fuel burnup calculations for five fuel cycles. The core inventories at the Beginning of Cycle (BOC) and End of Cycle (EOC) were studied, and the impact of thorium fuel was assessed. The proposed core design is a burner reactor which uses thorium fuel. The excess core reactivity stays positive for long time despite large net consumption of transuranic elements as new fissile Uranium 233 is constantly breed from Thorium 232. Breeding of uranium allows longer fuel cycles.
Highlights
Thorium was identified as a prospective nuclear fuel and an alternative to uranium way back in the there is no commercial-scale thorium fuelled nuclear reactors under operation, meaning all that resource is left practically unused for energy production
Thorium’s ability to breed fissile material and produce relatively small traces of plutonium and minor actinides makes it considerable fuel for the Gen-IV requirements creating a larger interest to use thoriumbased nuclear fuel [2],[5]
A medium-sized 1000MWth Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor operating on Thorium Mixed Oxide fuel was studied
Summary
One of the most promising and matured Gen-IV design is the Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR). Many countries, such as Russia, France, China and India, have shown their interest in SFR technology building more than half a century of experience. One of the main reasons is that thorium has no fissile isotope; it needs either uranium or plutonium as drivers for reactor cores to initiate breeding of fissile U233. There are arguments that the application of thorium in fast reactors is not very competitive when comparing its application in thermal designs Those arguments are mainly due to the possibility to use the large depleted uranium stockpiles, which are the heritage of the Cold War and by-product of enrichment process. Due to its lower MA production thorium can be used in nuclear waste burner reactors which leads to the scope and motivation of this paper
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