Evaluation of different integrated burnable absorber materials in fuel assemblies of Bushehr WWER-1000 nuclear reactor
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Zahra Papi
and
Reza Pour-Imani
Abstract
Nowadays, reducing fuel consumption, fuel cost, and fuel waste is obtained by increasing the burnup and reactor cycle length as essential goals in nuclear power plants. Due to the scarcity of Iran’s uranium resources and the plan for using new types of fuel in the Water–Water Energetic Reactors (WWER-1000) at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), utilizing Integral Burnable Absorbers (IBAs) is of great importance. In the present study, a neutronic evaluation has been conducted to investigate the variations of infinite multiplication factor versus burnup, reactivity swing, and power distribution in various IBAs, including Gd2O3-UO2, Er2O3-UO2, and Dy2O3-UO2. The results were compared with the standard burnable absorber in the BNPP reactor core (CrB2Al). It can be concluded that gadolinium IBA, with a concentration of 5%, has the greatest effect on the initial reactivity and reduces the reactivity swing by 19% compared to the CrB2Al BA. In addition, by using coaxial gadolinium-erbium IBA pins, as well as optimizing the neutronic condition, the reactor cycle length increased by 1.01 GWd/MTU compared to the standard Bushehr BA.
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Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Design and evaluation of ecological interface for Feedwater Deaerating Tank and Gas Stripper System based on cognitive work analysis
- Evaluation of different integrated burnable absorber materials in fuel assemblies of Bushehr WWER-1000 nuclear reactor
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Application of the COCOSYS code in the safety evaluation of Czech nuclear power plants
- Improving of electric network feeding nuclear facility based on multiple types DGs placement
- Design and evaluation of ecological interface for Feedwater Deaerating Tank and Gas Stripper System based on cognitive work analysis
- Evaluation of different integrated burnable absorber materials in fuel assemblies of Bushehr WWER-1000 nuclear reactor
- Effective physical protection system design and implementation at a radiological facility: an integrated and risk management approach
- Determination of limiter design and material composition of MT-II spherical tokamak
- Dynamics effects of tritium reduction on the energy gain of D-T fuel pellet using double cone ignition
- Design of an unattended ore grading measurement system in a uranium mine
- Prediction of heat transfer characteristics in a microchannel with vortex generators by machine learning
- Prediction of nanofluid flows’ optimum velocity in finned tube-in-tube heat exchangers using artificial neural network
- Investigating the in-core 60Co production assembly for open pool type reactor
- Calendar of events
