Depletion of Gadolinium burnable poison in a PWR assembly with high burnup fuel
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R. M. Refeat
Abstract
A tendency to increase the discharge burnup of nuclear fuel for Advanced Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) has been a characteristic of its operation for many years. It will be able to burn at very high burnup of about 70 GWd/t with UO2 fuels. The U-235 enrichment must be higher than 5 %, which leads to the necessity of using an extremely efficient burnable poison like Gadolinium oxide. Using gadolinium isotope is significant due to its particular depletion behavior (“Onion-Skin” effect). In this paper, the MCNPX2.7 code is used to calculate the important neutronic parameters of the next generation fuels of PWR. K-infinity, local peaking factor and fission rate distributions are calculated for a PWR assembly which burn at very high burnup reaching 70 GWd/t. The calculations are performed using the recently released evaluated Gadolinium cross section data. The results obtained are close to those of a LWR next generation fuel benchmark problem. This demonstrates that the calculation scheme used is able to accurately model a PWR assembly that operates at high burnup values.
Kurzfassung
Die Tendenz zur Erhöhung des Abbrands der Kernbrennelemente fortschrittlicher Druckwasserreaktoren (DWR) ist seit vielen Jahren ein charakteristisches Merkmal beim Betrieb. Der Hochabbrand dieser Reaktoren liegt bei 70 GWd/t mit UO2 als Brennstoff. Die U-235-Anreicherung muss höher sein als 5 %, was zur Verwendung von extrem effizienten Reaktorgiften führt, wie z. B. Gadoliniumoxid. Die Verwendung von Gadolinium ist interessant aufgrund seines besonderen Abreicherungsverhaltens (“Onion-Skin” Effekt). In diesem Beitrag wurde der MCNPX2.7 Code verwendet um wichtige Neutronen-Parameter der Brennstoffe der nächsten Generation der DWR zu berechnen. K-Unendlich, lokaler Überhöhungsfaktor und Spaltratenverteilungen wurden für eine DWR-Anordnung berechnet, die einen sehr hohen Abbrand von bis zu 70 GWd/t erreicht. Die Berechnungen wurden mit den kürzlich freigegebenen Wirkungsquerschnittsdaten von Gadolinium durchgeführt. Die erhaltenen Ergebnisse liegen nahe an denen für einen Brennstoff-Bezugswert für LWR der nächsten Generation. Dies zeigt, dass das verwendete Berechnungsschema eine genaue Modellierung der DWR-Anordnung mit hohem Abbrand ermöglicht.
References
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© 2015, Carl Hanser Verlag, München
Articles in the same Issue
- Contents/Inhalt
- Contents
- Summaries/Kurzfassungen
- Summaries
- Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
- Considering the uncertainties in empirical correlations for vertical countercurrent flow limitation (CCFL) with TRACE
- 3RIP trip startup test simulation of TRACE/PARCS model for Lungmen ABWR under different power and flow conditions
- Development of a new analytic function expansion nodal code, HexDANM, for solving the neutron diffusion equation in hexagonal-Z geometry
- Laser cleaning of steam generator tubing based on acoustic emission technology
- Axial enrichment profile in advance nuclear energy power plant at supercritical-pressures
- Analysis of the small break loss of coolant accident in the VVER-1000/V446 reactor
- Thermal hydraulic analysis of reactivity accidents in MTR research reactors using RELAP5
- Depletion of Gadolinium burnable poison in a PWR assembly with high burnup fuel
- Nuclear model calculations on cyclotron production of 51Cr
- Radiotracer application for characterization of nuclear grade anion exchange resins Tulsion A-23 and Dowex SBR LC
- Solving the criticality problem with the reflected boundary condition for the triplet anisotropic scattering with the modified FN method
Articles in the same Issue
- Contents/Inhalt
- Contents
- Summaries/Kurzfassungen
- Summaries
- Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
- Considering the uncertainties in empirical correlations for vertical countercurrent flow limitation (CCFL) with TRACE
- 3RIP trip startup test simulation of TRACE/PARCS model for Lungmen ABWR under different power and flow conditions
- Development of a new analytic function expansion nodal code, HexDANM, for solving the neutron diffusion equation in hexagonal-Z geometry
- Laser cleaning of steam generator tubing based on acoustic emission technology
- Axial enrichment profile in advance nuclear energy power plant at supercritical-pressures
- Analysis of the small break loss of coolant accident in the VVER-1000/V446 reactor
- Thermal hydraulic analysis of reactivity accidents in MTR research reactors using RELAP5
- Depletion of Gadolinium burnable poison in a PWR assembly with high burnup fuel
- Nuclear model calculations on cyclotron production of 51Cr
- Radiotracer application for characterization of nuclear grade anion exchange resins Tulsion A-23 and Dowex SBR LC
- Solving the criticality problem with the reflected boundary condition for the triplet anisotropic scattering with the modified FN method
