Assessment of Fast-Spectrum Blanket Lattices for Breeding Fissile Fuel From Thorium and Depleted Uranium in an Externally Driven Sub-Critical Gas-Cooled Pressure Tube Reactor

Abstract

To ensure long-term nuclear energy security, it is advantageous to consider the use of externally driven sub-critical systems for producing fissile fuel to supply fleets of thermal-spectrum reactors as an alternative to using fast-spectrum or thermal-spectrum breeder reactors. Computational/analytical neutronics and heat transfer studies have been carried out for gas-cooled fuel bundle lattices with mixtures of fertile thorium and depleted uranium (DU) that could be used in the blanket region of a sub-critical fast reactor driven either by a fusion reactor in a hybrid fusion-fission reactor (HFFR) system, or an accelerator-based spallation neutron source in an accelerator driven system (ADS). The HFFR or ADS concept envisioned is one with a simple cylindrical geometry. The annular-cylindrical blanket is approximately 10 m long, can be made 2–5 m thick (1.0 m ≤ Rblanket ≤ 3.0 m to 6.0 m), and is filled with a repeating square lattice of pressure tubes filled with 0.5 m long fuel bundles that are made of (DU,Th)O2, with various mixtures of Th and DU, and refuelled periodically online. Although using blankets made of pure DUO2 or ThO2 are viable options to analyze, mixing DUO2 with ThO2 can help alleviate any potential proliferation concerns, since any 233U produced from breeding will be denatured by the presence of 238U in (DU, Th)O2. Lattice calculations demonstrate that the total fissile content in the fuel after an extended period of burnup (50 MWd/kg) will be approximately the same, regardless of the mixture of DU and thorium used, and that the content of americium and 232U in the irradiated fuel will be <0.01 wt%/initial heavy metal.