Assessment of a self-sustaining fuel cycle option for a pressure-tube heavy water nuclear reactor
| Autor: | Ashlea V. Colton, S. Golesorkhi, M.H. Kaye, Blair P. Bromley |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Engineering
Fissile material business.industry 020209 energy Nuclear engineering 02 engineering and technology Natural uranium Nuclear reactor Fuel element failure Spent nuclear fuel Thorium fuel cycle law.invention Plutonium-240 law 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering business MOX fuel |
| Zdroj: | 2016 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC). |
| DOI: | 10.1109/epec.2016.7771758 |
| Popis: | Nuclear energy is an excellent power source for stable, clean-air, baseload electricity generation. The pressure tube heavy water reactor (PT-HWR) is a proven design with extensive operational experience and has great flexibility in the type of nuclear fuels and fuel cycles that can be used. Thorium is a relatively abundant alternative fuel that could help complement and eventually replace uranium. The objective of this work was to evaluate a potential heterogeneous seed/blanket PT-HWR core concept that may be able to achieve a self-sustaining thorium fuel cycles. It was found that very high-conversion, nearly sustainable cores which breed up to 99.06% of the required fissile fuel can be achieved. In addition, this concept can allow a PT-HWR to operate at a power level that is 10% higher than those currently operating with natural uranium (NU) fuel. Options for future studies such as coupling this reactor concept with others providing makeup fissile uranium fuel, are discussed. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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