Preliminary study on feasibility of large and small water cooled thorium breeder reactor in equilibrium states

Permana, Sidik; Takaki, Naoyuki; Sekimoto, Hiroshi

doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2007.11.014

Cited by 19 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Figure 17 shows that the product rate of 3 H in equilibrium state decreases as the increase of V f , which is in keeping with the (n,a) reaction rate of 9 Be shown in Figure 15. Since the (n,a) reaction rate of 9 Be in quasifast spectrum is low, the product rate of 3 H is only about 30-40 g/GW/year, which is not proportional to the concentration of 6 Li.…”

Section: Equilibrium Concentration Of Li-6 and Production Rate Of H-3mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Number of 233 U fission neutron is assumed to be 2.5, fission energy of 233 U is assumed to be 200 MeV. The product rate of 3 H is equal to the (n,a) reaction rate of 9 Be. Figure 17 shows that the product rate of 3 H in equilibrium state decreases as the increase of V f , which is in keeping with the (n,a) reaction rate of 9 Be shown in Figure 15.…”

Section: Equilibrium Concentration Of Li-6 and Production Rate Of H-3mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to the high effective number of neutrons for each 233 U fission in a thermal and epithermal neutron spectrum, thorium breeding is feasible in most existing and prospective reactor designs (including LWRs [2,3], HWRs [4][5][6][7][8], HTGRs [9] and molten salt reactors [10][11][12]), and it can provide the negative void reactivity coefficient due to the softer neutron spectrum than that of fast reactor. However, the thorium breeding gain in these reactors is far lower than fast reactor's.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainability of thorium-uranium in pebble-bed fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactor

Zhu

Zou

2016

EPJ Nuclear Sci. Technol.

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Abstract. Sustainability of thorium fuel in a Pebble-Bed Fluoride salt-cooled High temperature Reactor (PB-FHR) is investigated to find the feasible region of high discharge burnup and negative Flibe (2LiF-BeF 2 ) salt Temperature Reactivity Coefficient (TRC). Dispersion fuel or pellet fuel with SiC cladding and SiC matrix is used to replace the tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) coated particle system for increasing fuel loading and decreasing excessive moderation. To analyze the neutronic characteristics, an equilibrium calculation method of thorium fuel self-sustainability is developed. We have compared two refueling schemes (mixing flow pattern and directional flow pattern) and two kinds of reflector materials (SiC and graphite). This method found that the feasible region of breeding and negative Flibe TRC is between 20 vol% and 62 vol% fuel loading in the fuel. A discharge burnup could be achieved up to about 200 MWd/kgHM. The case with directional flow pattern and SiC reflector showed superior burnup characteristics but the worst radial power peak factor, while the case with mixing flow pattern and SiC reflector, which was the best tradeoff between discharge burnup and radial power peak factor, could provide burnup of 140 MWd/kgHM and about 1.4 radial power peak factor with 50 vol% dispersion fuel. In addition, Flibe salt displays good neutron properties as a coolant of quasi-fast reactors due to the strong 9 Be(n,2n) reaction and low neutron absorption of 6 Li (even at 1000 ppm) in fast spectrum. Preliminary thermal hydraulic calculation shows good safety margin. The greatest challenge of this reactor may be the decades irradiation time of the pebble fuel.

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Section: Equilibrium Concentration Of Li-6 and Production Rate Of H-3mentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Equilibrium Concentration Of Li-6 and Production Rate Of H-3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainability of thorium-uranium in pebble-bed fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactor

Zhu

Zou

2016

EPJ Nuclear Sci. Technol.

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“…The question of a water-cooled reactor with self-sustaining U3/Th fuel has been explored in a number of studies, including the light water breeder reactor (Freeman et al, 1989), various light water moderated parametric reactor physics studies (Permana et al, 2007(Permana et al, , 2008Shwageraus et al, 2008;Yun et al, 2010;Lindley et al, 2014), reduced moderation boiling water reactors Shaposhnik et al, 2013;Lindley et al, 2014), and heavy water cooled pressurized water reactors (Takaki and Mardiansah, 2012), among many other studies. It is outside the scope of this paper to provide a comprehensive literature review or to develop such a reactor system.…”

Section: Analysis Of Water-cooled Configurationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable thorium nuclear fuel cycles: A comparison of intermediate and fast neutron spectrum systems

Brown

Powers

Feng

et al. 2015

Nuclear Engineering and Design

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h i g h l i g h t s• Comparison of intermediate and fast spectrum thorium-fueled reactors.• Variety of reactor technology options enables self-sustaining thorium fuel cycles. • Fuel cycle analyses indicate similar performance for fast and intermediate systems.• Reproduction factor plays a significant role in breeding and burn-up performance. a b s t r a c t This paper presents analyses of possible reactor representations of a nuclear fuel cycle with continuous recycling of thorium and produced uranium (mostly U-233) with thorium-only feed. The analysis was performed in the context of a U.S. Department of Energy effort to develop a compendium of informative nuclear fuel cycle performance data. The objective of this paper is to determine whether intermediate spectrum systems, having a majority of fission events occurring with incident neutron energies between 1 eV and 10 5 eV, perform as well as fast spectrum systems in this fuel cycle. The intermediate spectrum options analyzed include tight lattice heavy or light water-cooled reactors, continuously refueled molten salt reactors, and a sodium-cooled reactor with hydride fuel. All options were modeled in reactor physics codes to calculate their lattice physics, spectrum characteristics, and fuel compositions over time. Based on these results, detailed metrics were calculated to compare the fuel cycle performance. These metrics include waste management and resource utilization, and are binned to accommodate uncertainties. The performance of the intermediate systems for this self-sustaining thorium fuel cycle was similar to a representative fast spectrum system. However, the number of fission neutrons emitted per neutron absorbed limits performance in intermediate spectrum systems.

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“…The optimum design of a long-life reactor core can be obtained using a fuel cycle with a high conversion ratio [9,10,38]. In this case, a fuel material with a high conversion ratio in a water-cooled reactor is a combination of Thorium and enriched Uranium [11]. Thorium as a fuel has several advantages such as high fuel stability, better aspects of nuclear nonproliferation, good fuel breeding capabilities, especially in areas of thermal and epithermal neutron energy [12][13][14][15].…”

Section: Introduction mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neutronic Analysis of Small Long-Life Pressurized Water Reactor Using (Th-U)O2 Fuels with Gd2O3 and Pa-231 as Burnable Poisons

Hariyanto

Yuningsih

Permana

2020

ijp

Self Cite

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The requirement for electricity increases with the growth of the human population. The existing power plants have not been able to fulfill all electricity requirements, especially in remote areas. The small long-life pressurized water reactor (PWR) is one of the solutions and innovations in nuclear technology that can produce electrical energy for a long time without refueling. This study aimed to analyze the neutronic of small long-life PWR that using Thorium-Uranium dioxide ((Th-U)O2) fuels with enriched Uranium-235 (U-235) and the addition of Gadolinium (Gd2O3) and Protactinium-231 (Pa-231) as the burnable poisons. The SRAC Code with the JENDL-4.0 nuclear data library had been used for the calculation method. In this study, the geometry of the two-dimensional (R-Z) reactor core with different fuel volume fraction was analyzed. Moreover, variations of the Uranium-235, Gadolinium, and Protactinium-231 fractions in the fuels were carried out. The result in this study was a PWR 420 MWt design using 60% Uranium dioxide fuel with enriched Uranium-235 of 10%-11%-12% and the addition of 0,0125% Gadolinium and 1,0% Protactinium-231 as the burnable poisons that could operate for thirteen years without refueling. The small long-life PWR design could produce a power density of 85,1 watts/cc with the reactivity for less than 4,6% dk/k.

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Preliminary study on feasibility of large and small water cooled thorium breeder reactor in equilibrium states

Cited by 19 publications

References 17 publications

Sustainability of thorium-uranium in pebble-bed fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactor

Sustainability of thorium-uranium in pebble-bed fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactor

Sustainable thorium nuclear fuel cycles: A comparison of intermediate and fast neutron spectrum systems

Neutronic Analysis of Small Long-Life Pressurized Water Reactor Using (Th-U)O2 Fuels with Gd2O3 and Pa-231 as Burnable Poisons

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