Core characteristics of fast reactor cycle with simple dry pyrochemical processing

Fast reactor core concept and core nuclear characteristics are studied for the application of the simple dry pyrochemical processing for fast reactor mixed oxide spent fuels, that is, the Compound Process Fuel Cycle, large FR core with half of loaded fuels are recycled by the simple dry pyrochemical processing. Results of the core nuclear analyses show that it is possible to recycle FR spent fuel once and to have 1.01 of breeding ratio without radial blanket region. The comparison is made among three kinds of recycle fuels, LWR UO₂ spent fuel, LWR MOX spent fuel, and FR spent fuel. The recycle fuels reach an equilibrium state after recycles regardless of their starting heavy metal compositions, and the recycled FR fuel has the lowest radio-activity and the same level of heat generation among the recycle fuels. Therefore, the compound process fuel cycle has flexibility to recycle both LWR spent fuel and FR spent fuel. The concept has a possibility of enhancement of nuclear non-proliferation and process simplification of fuel cycle.     

聚变裂变混合乏燃料焚烧堆FDS-SFB燃料循环方案设计与分析

针对聚变裂变混合乏燃料焚烧堆FDS-SFB(Spent Fuel Burner),基于湿法和干法两种后处理技术途径提出了不同的燃料循环方案。并分别对FDS-SFB燃料循环所需的初装资源量、燃料制备和乏燃料后处理能力进行初步质量流分析和可行性初步评估。基于较好嬗变和增殖性能的FDS-SFB典型中子学方案的质量流初步分析表明:两种方案燃料循环其所需的初装资源量、燃料制备、乏燃料后处理能力具有初步的可行性。     

The closed on-site fuel cycle of the brest reactors

The BREST fast reactor with nitride fuel and lead coolant is being developed as a reactor of new generation, which has to meet a set of requirements placed upon innovative reactors, namely efficient use of fuel resources, nuclear, radiation and environmental safety, proliferation resistance, radwaste treatment and economic efficiency. Mixed uranium-plutonium mononitride fuel composition allows supporting in BREST reactor CBR≈1. It is not required to separate plutonium to produce “fresh” fuel. Coarse recovered fuel purification of fission products is allowed (residual content of FPs may be in the range of 10⁻² – 10⁻³ of their content in the irradiated fuel). High activity of the regenerated fuel caused by minor actinides is a radiation barrier against fuel thefts. The fuel cycle of the BREST-type reactors “burns” uranium-238, which must be added to the fuel during reprocessing. Plutonium is not extracted during reprocessing being a part of fuel composition, thus exhibiting an important nonproliferation feature.

The radiation equivalence between natural uranium consumed by the BREST NPP closed system and long-lived high-level radwaste is provided by actinides (U, Pu, Am) transmutation in the fuel and long-lived products (I, Tc) transmutation in the blanket. The high-level waste must be stored for approximately 200 years to reduce its activity by the factor of about 1000.

The design of the building and the entire set of the fuel cycle equipment has been completed for the demonstration BREST-OD-300 reactor, which includes all main features of the BREST-type reactor on-site closed fuel cycle.     

Core performance of new concept passive-safety reactor “kamado” - safety, burn-up and uranium resource problem -

New concept of a passive-safety reactor “KAMADO” has a negligible possibility of core melting and flexibility of total reactor power. The reactor core of KAMADO consists of fuel elements of graphite blocks, which have UO₂ fuel rods and cooling water holes. These fuel elements are located in a reactor water pool of atmospheric pressure (1 atm) and low temperature (< 60°C). In case of LOCA, decay heat from fuel rods is removed by conduction heat transfer to the reactor water pool. Since the cooling water does not contact a fuel rod directly, core design has much flexibility without considering dry-out limitation and Minimum Critical Power Ratio (MCPR). Additionally an effective use of spent fuel is expected.     

关于我国核燃料闭合循环战略的讨论

按我国《核电中长期发展规划(2005—2020年)》,我国将坚持核燃料闭合循环的技术路线。讨论了实施核燃料闭合循环的意义,简要介绍了国际发展的基本态势。对几个相关问题,如商用乏燃料处理厂建设时机;钚的产用平衡;MOX燃料在热堆核电站使用的适应性;经济性等作了讨论,并提出政策建议。     

乏燃料溶液嬗变堆焚烧锕系核素能力分析

针对焚烧锕系核素的目标,选择不同的乏燃料成分和堆芯功率,构造了7种乏燃料溶液嬗变堆( HSTR)堆芯模型,采用溶液堆堆芯燃料管理程序FMCHR计算了堆芯内Pu、Np及其他长寿命锕系核素的燃耗变化,分析了HSTR焚烧锕系核素的能力.结果表明:HSTR可以有效实现焚烧239pu的目标,同时嬗变可观数量的237Np;若要实现...     

Transition toward thorium fuel cycle in a molten salt reactor by using plutonium

The molten salt reactor(MSR), as one of the Generation Ⅳ advanced nuclear systems, has attracted a worldwide interest due to its excellent performances in safety, economics, sustainability, and proliferation resistance. The aim of this work is to provide and evaluate possible solutions to fissile 233 U production and further the fuel transition to thorium fuel cycle in a thermal MSR by using plutonium partitioned from light water reactors spent fuel. By using an in-house developed tool, a breeding and burning(BB) scenario is first introduced and analyzed from the aspects of the evolution of main nuclides, net 233 U production, spectrum shift, and temperature feedback coefficient. It can be concluded that such a Th/Pu to Th/~(233)U transition can be accomplished by employing a relatively fast fuel reprocessing with a cycle time less than 60 days. At the equilibrium state, the reactor can achieve a conversion ratio of about 0.996 for the 60-day reprocessing period(RP) case and about 1.047 for the 10-day RP case.The results also show that it is difficult to accomplish such a fuel transition with limited reprocessing(RP is 180 days),and the reactor operates as a converter and burns the plutonium with the help of thorium. Meanwhile, a prebreeding and burning(PBB) scenario is also analyzed briefly with respect to the net 233 U production and evolution of main nuclides. One can find that it is more efficient to produce 233 U under this scenario, resulting in a double time varying from about 1.96 years for the 10-day RP case to about 6.15 years for the 180-day RP case.     

Evaluation of implementation of thorium fuel cycle with LWR and MSR

In order to construct a sustainable society, it is necessary to consider fairness beyond generations and between countries. It is expected that Asian countries continue growing their economy and will result consuming more energy. More CO₂ emission is not acceptable.Nuclear power has many advantages for reducing CO₂ emission. However, it still has concerns of nuclear proliferation, radioactive waste and safety. It is necessary to overcome these concerns if nuclear power is expanded to Asian countries. Thorium utilization as nuclear fuel will be an opening key of these difficulties because thorium produces less plutonium, less radioactive waste. Safety will also be enhanced. The use of molten-salt reactor (MSR) triggered by plutonium supply from ordinary light water reactor (LWR) with uranium fuel will allow implementation of thorium fuel cycle with electricity capacity of about 446 GWe around at 2050.The other important sector in a view of sustainability is transportation. Transportation is essential for economy growth. Therefore it is inevitable to reduce CO₂ emission from transportation sector. Electric vehicle (EV) will be used as a major mobility instead of gasoline engine cars. Rare-earth materials such as neodymium and dysprosium are necessary for producing EV. These materials are expected to be mined from Asian countries. It is often obtained with thorium as by-product. Thorium has not been used as nuclear fuel because it is not good for nuclear weapon and it does not have fissionable isotopes. Recent global trend of nuclear disarmament and accumulation of plutonium from uranium fuel cycle can support starting the use of thorium.Thorium utilization will help both to provide clean energy and to produce rare-earth for clean vehicle. These will create new industries in developing Asian countries. An international collaborative framework can be established by supplying resource from developing countries and supplying technology from developed countries. “THE Bank (THorium Energy Bank)” is proposed here as one part of such a framework.     

压水堆核电厂乏燃料后处理平准成本分析

基于压水堆核电厂乏燃料后处理工厂的规模与建设费用的半定量关系,以年处理能力为800 t的商用后处理厂为例,采用自上而下的方法,重点分析了隔夜成本、建造期和建造期间的利率,对采用PUREX流程的后处理工厂的建设费用影响;并用与建造期相同的利率,计算了UOX乏燃料后处理的平准成本.     

Commercialized fast reactor cycle systems and reactor core performance of the promising fast reactors

The Feasibility Study on Commercialized Fast Reactor (FR) Cycle Systems is under progress in order to propose prominent FR cycle systems that will respond to the diverse needs of society in the future. The design studies on various FR system concepts have been achieved and then the evaluations of potential to achieve the development targets have been also carried out. Crucial development issues have been found out for each FR system concept and their development plans for the key technologies are summarized as the roadmap. As a result, it has been confirmed that the sodium-cooled FR concept is highly suited to the development targets and R&D issues are related enhancing the economy with certain perspectives for realization. A flexible and robust development program for the FR cycle system will be proposed taking account of the characteristics for each FR concept until the end of the Phase II study.     

快堆核燃料循环模式的经济性评价

以快堆核电厂的核燃料循环过程及核燃料循环模型为基础,利用注销法对2种核燃料循环方式进行经济性计算和分析;同时,也将快堆燃料循环经济性与压水堆(PWR)燃料"一次通过"的经济性进行对比。按目前价格水平计算,PWR"一次通过"的核燃料循环方式比快堆核燃料循环模式的经济性好,但随着天然铀价格的上涨以及燃料后处理技术水平的进步,快堆核燃料循环费用有望达到或低于PWR"一次通过"的核燃料循环费用。     

钍燃料循环的现状和发展

概述钍燃料循环目前的发展状况。介绍了钍燃料循环在各种反应堆型中的应用,归纳了钍燃料循环的优势及其不足。指出目前钍燃料循环发展中的主要困难是乏燃料的后处理及经济性问题,阐述了国外的后处理尝试方法。     

TRU burning by dual tier system of LWR-SFR

This paper presents a concept of the dual tier system consisting of the existing light water reactor (LWR) plants and sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) for transuranics (TRU) burning for the purpose of downsizing the required SFR. In this system, Pu is combusted by the LWR at first and then the remaining Np, Am, and Pu are destructed by the SFR. The iteration number of Pu combustion by the LWR is chosen to be twice owing to the sodium void reactivity limitation of $6. As a result of combustion calculation, the twice Pu burning of LWR lessens the TRU amount by 27% and changes the composition significantly. Moderator pins of zirconium hydride are deployed to the SFR fuel subassembly so as to enhance TRU burning and reduce the sodium void reactivity. The nuclear calculation found that the core characteristics become similar to the conventional SFR due to the moderator: the sodium void reactivity remains still $4 and the Doppler coefficient becomes −6 × 10⁻³ Tdk/dT. This study concludes that this dual tier strategy can downsize the required SFR to approximately 40% of the single tier system of SFR with TRU conversion ratio of 0.6.     

Hypothetical integration of a fast reactor to the fuel cycle in Slovakia

The inspiration for dealing with the topic of fuel cycle back-end was attendance at a European project called RED-IMPACT – Impact of Partitioning Transmutation and Waste Reduction Technologies. This paper includes an image how to re-use energetic potential of stored spent fuel and at the same time how to effectively reduce spent fuel and radioactive waste volumes aimed for deep repositories. The first part is based on the analysis of Pu and minor actinides (MA) content in actual VVER-440 spent fuel stored in Slovakia. The next parts present the hypothetical possibilities of reprocessing and Pu re-use in a fast reactor under Slovak conditions. For the hypothetical transmutation of heavy nuclides (Pu and MA) contained in Slovak spent fuel a SUPERPHENIX (SPX) fast reactor with increased power was chosen because a fast nuclear reactor cooled by sodium belongs to the group of Generation IV reactor systems. This article deals with the analysis of power production and fuel cycle indicators. The indicators of the SPX calculation model were compared with the results of the VVER-440 spent fuel with the initial fuel enrichment of 4.25% U-235 + 3.35% Gd₂O₃. The created SPX model in the spectral computer code HELIOS 1.10 consists of a fissile (fuel) and a fertile part (blanket). All kinds of calculations were performed by the computer code HELIOS 1.10. This study also exposes the HELIOS modelling and simulating borders.     

Core concept of a passive-safety fast reactor “METAL-KAMADO” and reactivity coefficients

New concept of a passive-safety simple fast reactor “METAL-KAMADO” with metallic fuels is presented, which has same concept as a passive-safety thermal reactor “KAMADO”. A fuel element of the “METAL-KAMADO” consists of metallic fuel (U–10%Zr) and cooling holes of He gas flow. These fuel elements are located in a reactor water pool of atmospheric pressure (0.1 MPa) and low temperature (<60 °C). In case of LOF, decay heats of fuel elements are removed by natural heat transfer from surfaces of the fuel elements to the reactor water pool.

Preliminary neutronic calculations of the “METAL-KAMADO” show possibility of high burn-up of more than 120 GWd/t with 10% enriched U–Zr fuel. Reactivity coefficients of the core are also discussed.     

Nuclear burning wave in fast reactor with mixed Th-U fuel

The possibility of creating a self-sustained regime of a running nuclear burning wave in the critical fast reactor with the mixed Th-U fuel is demonstrated. The calculations were performed in the deterministic approach based on solving the non-stationary multi-group diffusion equation of neutron transport together with the set of equations of the fuel component burn-up and the nuclear kinetics of precursor nuclei of delayed neutrons. The presence of the constructional material Fe and the coolant (the Pb-Bi eutectic) in the reactor composition is taken into account. The calculation results of the space-time evolution of neutron flux and fuel component concentrations are presented for different values of the Th-U ratio in the fuel. The calculations show the remarkable stability of the nuclear burning wave regime against neutron flux distortions in the reactor, which is a result of the negative feedback on reactivity inherent to this regime. This is one of the most important features of the reactor of this type, which ensures its intrinsic safety.     

我国钍燃料循环发展研究

调研分析了钍燃料循环的优缺点和国内外研究现状.通过详细分析研究各种堆型的钍资源利用潜力,从核能可持续发展的角度出发,提出了我国钍燃料循环发展的有关结论和建议:(1)当前的核电堆型除高温堆外都不适合进行钍利用;(2)建议采用快堆/热中子堆联合钍燃料循环的方式进行钍资源利用;(3)先进反应堆研究应集中于其堆型本身的研发;(...     

Investigation on Criticality and Infinite Multiplication Factor of High Conversion Light Water Reactor Using Zone-Type FCA-HCLWR Core Fueled with Enriched Uranium

—A series of reactor physics experiments have been carried out at the FCA to examine the availability of the nuclear data and computational method currently employed to evaluate the nuclear characteristics of the High Conversion Light Water Reactor. Experimental results of the effective and infinite multiplication factors k_eff and k_∞ are compared with the calculated ones for three zone-type FCA-HCLWR cores fueled with enriched uranium. The calculated k_eff and k_∞ values with use of the SRAC system and the cross section set based on the JENDL-2 data file show a good agreement with the measured ones. The calculated-to-experimental (C/E) values for k_eff and k_∞ do not depend on the cell parameters such as the fuel enrichment, the moderator voidage state and the moderator-to-fuel volume ratio, and these values are similar with each other There is also no inconsistency between the C/E values for k_eff and k_∞ : The average C/E values are 989 and 0 988 for k_eff and k_∞ respectively     

2020年前我国核燃料循环情景初步研究

根据我国核电现状和中短期发展规划,对2020年前我国核电规模提出了三种预测方案,并根据各种方案对压水堆电站的核燃料循环情景进行了计算。重点研究了压水堆核电所需的铀资源、分离功,卸出的乏燃料以及乏燃料中Pu和次要锕系元素(MA)的产生量。     

Utilization of spent PWR fuel-advanced nuclear fuel cycle of PWR／CANDU synergism

High neutron economy, on line refueling and channel design result in the unsurpassed fuel cycle flexi-bility and variety for CANDU reactors. According to the Chinese national conditions that China has both PWR and CANDU reactors and the closed cycle policy of reprocessing the spent PWR fuel is adopted, one of the advanced nu-clear fuel cycles of PWR/CANDU synergism using the reprocessed uranium of spent PWR fuel in CANDU reactor is proposed, which will save the uranium resource (-22.5%), increase the energy output (-41%), decrease the quantity of spent fuels to be disposed (-2/3) and lower the cost of nuclear poower, Because of the inherent flexibility of nuclearfuel cycle in CANDU reactor, and the low radiation level of recycled uranium(RU), which is acceptable for CANDU reactor fuel fabrication, the transition from the natural uranium to the RU can be completed without major modifica-tion of the reactor core structure and operation mode.It can be implemented in Qinshan Phase Ⅲ CANDU reactors with little or no requirement of big investment in new design. It can be expected that the reuse of recycled uranium of spent PWR fuel in CANDU reactor is a feasible and desirable strategy in China.