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Double solitary waves reactor

  • Jin Feng Huang ORCID logo , Guang Chun Zhang EMAIL logo and Yu Jie Zhao
Published/Copyright: April 16, 2025
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Abstract

Breed-and-burn reactors are a type of fast reactor that can directly burn depleted uranium or nature uranium with once through fuel cycle. The breed-and-burn reactors are composed of ignition zones and breeding zones. One of the significant challenges in practice is that high peak neutron flux levels lead to high radiation damage for solid fuels and cladding, and also lead to high peak power density. In this study, double solitary waves reactor (DSWR), likely breed-and-burn reactors but features double separated ignition zones, were proposed to reduce peak neutron flux and peak power density by half in order to provide the feasible of practical applications, and still could not reduce total output power. The breed-and-burn reactors with double separated ignition zones would generate double solitary waves propagating in nonlinear system. The double solitary waves were observed when DSWR was operating normally, and a nonlinear superposition effect was discovered. The DSWR was a fast spectrum reactor cooled by liquid mental Pb–Bi. The wave amplitude or neutron flux, the evolution of nuclides and the nonlinear superposition effect were analyzed to evaluated the feasibility of DSWR. Finally, the optimized scheme was adopted then discharged fuel burnup decreased from 380 GWd/T to ∼ 200 GWd/T in breeding zone to yield to engineering technology.


Corresponding author: Guang Chun Zhang, School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China, E-mail:

Funding source: Ignition Research Foundation of Doctor in East China University of Technology

Award Identifier / Grant number: 110-1410000736

Award Identifier / Grant number: 12265002

Award Identifier / Grant number: 12375167

Funding source: CGN-HIT Advanced Nuclear and New Energy Research Institute

Award Identifier / Grant number: CGN-HIT202202

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  3. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.

  5. Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  6. Research funding: This research work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.12265002, No.12375167), Ignition Research Foundation of Doctor in East China University of Technology (No. 110-1410000736) and CGN-HIT Advanced Nuclear and New Energy Research Institute (CGN-HIT202202).

  7. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Received: 2024-11-11
Accepted: 2025-03-10
Published Online: 2025-04-16
Published in Print: 2025-06-26

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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