Analysis of the optimal fuel composition for the Indonesian experimental power reactor
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P. H. Liem
Abstract
The optimal fuel composition of the 10 MWth Experimental Power Reactor (RDE), to be built by the Indonesian National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), is a very important design parameter since it will directly affect the fuel cost, new and spent fuel storage capacity, and other back-end environmental burden. The RDE is a very small sized pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) with low enriched uranium (LEU) UO2 TRISO fuel under multipass or once-through-then-out fueling scheme. A scoping study on fuel composition parameters, namely heavy metal (HM) loading per pebble and uranium enrichment is conducted. All burnup, criticality calculations and core equilibrium search are carried out by using BATAN-MPASS, a general in-core fuel management code for pebble bed HTGRs, featured with many automatic equilibrium searching options as well as thermal-hydraulic calculation capability. The RDE User Requirement Document issued by BATAN is used to derive the main core design parameters and constraints. The scoping study is conducted over uranium enrichment in the range of 10 to 20 w/o and HM loading in the range of 4 g to 10 g/pebble. Fissile loading per unit energy generated (kg/GWd) is taken as the objective function for the present scoping study. The analysis results show that the optimal HM loading is around 8 g/pebble. Under the constraint of 80 GWd/t fuel discharge burnup imposed by the technical specification, the uranium enrichment for the optimal HM loading is approximately 13 w/o.
Kurzfassung
Die optimale Brennstoffzusammensetzung des von der indonesischen National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN) geplanten 10 MWth experimentellen Leistungsreaktors (RDE) ist ein wichtiges Ausgestaltungsmerkmal, da dadurch direkt Brennstoffkosten, Lagerkapazitäten für neue und abgebrannte Brennelemente sowie Umweltbelastungen betroffen sind. Der RDE ist ein kleiner gasgekühlter Hochtemperatur-Reaktor (HTGR) mit niedrig angereichertem Uran (LEU) UO2 TRISO Brennstoff. Eine Voruntersuchung der Parameter der Brennstoffzusammensetzung, wie die Schwermetall-Beladung und die Urananreicherung eines Kugelbrennelements wurde durchgeführt. Alle Abbrand-, Kritikalitäts- und Gleichgewichtsberechnungen wurden mit Hilfe von BATAN-MPASS, einem Brennstoffmanagementcode für Kugelhaufenreaktoren durchgeführt. Das von BATAN ausgestellte Dokument für die RDE-Benutzeranforderungen wird verwendet um die wichtigsten Auslegungsparameter und ihre Beschränkungen abzuleiten. Die Voruntersuchung wurde durchgeführt über einen Bereich der Urananreicherung von 10 bis 20 w/o und einer Schwermetall-Beladung von 4 g bis 10 g/Kugel. Die Beladung mit spaltbarem Material pro erzeugte Energieeinheit (kg/GWd) wurde als objektive Funktion für die Voruntersuchung verwendet. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse zeigen, dass die optimale Schwermetall-Beladung bei etwa 8 g/Kugel liegt. Aufgrund der von den technischen Spezifikationen auferlegten Beschränkung von 80 GWd/t für den Entladebrand liegt die Urananreicherung bei optimaler Schwermetall-Beladung bei etwa 13 w/o.
References
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© 2017, Carl Hanser Verlag, München
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Articles in the same Issue
- Contents/Inhalt
- Contents
- Summaries/Kurzfassungen
- Summaries
- Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
- CANDU pressure tube leak detection by annulus gas dew point measurement: a critical review
- Multiple regression approach to predict turbine-generator output for Chinshan nuclear power plant
- 10.3139/124.110675
- Development of a parallel processing couple for calculations of control rod worth in terms of burn-up in a WWER-1000 reactor
- Simulation of protected and unprotected loss of flow transients in a WWER-1000 reactor based on the Drift-Flux Model
- Sensitivity analysis for CORSOR models simulating fission product release in LOFT-LP-FP-2 severe accident experiment
- Analysis of the optimal fuel composition for the Indonesian experimental power reactor
- Radiogenic lead from poly-metallic thorium ores as a valuable material for advanced nuclear facilities
- The effects of applying silicon carbide coating on core reactivity of pebble-bed HTR in water ingress accident
- Font Attributes based Text Steganographic algorithm (FATS) for communicating images: A nuclear power plant perspective
- Size control synthesis and characterization of ZnO nanoparticles and its application as ZnO-water based nanofluid in heat transfer enhancement in light water nuclear reactor
- Nuclear characteristics of epoxy resin as a space environment neutron shielding
- Exact solution of the neutron transport equation in spherical geometry
- Technical Notes/Technische Mitteilungen
- Determination of self-attenuation correction factor for lichen samples by using gamma-ray spectrometry
