MASTER pSTHBCflON OF THIS DOCUMSTT IS TOLIMtED , * Eliminated in later designs. ** Diameter increase required to equalize power of low and high temperature designs. *** Should be studied. * Thermal power of normalized designs held constant. ** All values normalized to load factor of 801. 2.7 the three contractors. For the purposes of this study, each contractor was asked to put forward a single high or low tenperature design to contrast with their reference design. This vas done in order to simplify the evaluation procedure. It was agreed that the inportant effects could be observed by looking at the difference between these single high and low tCTperature designs. The combination of fuel cycle costs, capital costs, and unavailability costs were used for selection of either a high or low tenperature design by each contractor. Economic factors were placed ahead of other considerations as is appropriate. In this study, attention is focused, first of all, on the fuel cycle costs, and then on those capital costs which are directly attributable to differences in core design. AI and GE see an inprovement in fuel cycle costs as the temperature is decreased. The WARD analysis shows an increase of fuel cycle costs with decreased temperature and the normalized designs show a small increase with decreased tenperature. These cost differentials come about by a relatively complex interaction among several variables which change as tenperature is changed. The main effects, however, are the change of theimal efficiency, the change of fuel lifetime, and in the case of GE, the change of fuel pin diameter and linear power. AI calculates an increased fuel lifetime sufficient to override the effect of decreased thermal efficiency. WARD, on the other hand, calculates no increase of fuel life; consequently, WARD'S fuel cycle costs increase as operating tenperatures are reduced. Calculations made using the normalized designs, indicate that these two factors are in fairly close balance and the net result is a very small change of fuel cycle cost. GE's net result comes from the interaction of a larger nimber of parameters. The most interesting result found in analyzing GE's design is the fact that fuel lifetime does not increase a great deal as the operating tenperature of the core is reduced. This comes about because of the relatively poor cooling strategy adopted by GE. Cladding and duct tenperatures in the General Electric cores are substantially higher than those of the other designers, and furthermore, for the GE low tenperature design, increased bypass flow makes the clad and duct tenperatures extraordinarily high for a low tenperature design. Nevertheless, some inprovement
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