A SCENARIO STUDY ON MIXING STRATEGIES OF FAST REACTOR WITH LOW AND HIGH CONVERSION RATIOS

• Main Authors: CHANG JOON JEONG, CHANG KEUN JO, JAE MAN NOH
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2013-06-01
• Series: Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• Subjects: Conversion Ratio; Fast Reactor; Spent Fuel; Transuranic Element; Fuel Cycle; Long-term Heat Load
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S173857331530022X
• ISSN: 1738-5733

This study investigated mixing scenarios of the low and high conversion ratios (CRs) of fast reactors (FRs). The fuel cycle was modeled so as to minimize the spent fuel (SF) or transuranics (TRU) inventories. The scenarios were modeled for a single low CR of 0.61 and a high CR of 1.0. The study also investigated the mixing scenario of low-high CR and/or high-low CR. The SF and TRU inventories, associated with different scenarios, were compared to those of the light water reactor (LWR) once-through (OT) case. Also, the important isotope concentration and long-term heat (LTH) load were calculated and compared to those of the OT cycle. As a result, it is known that the deployment of FRs of low CR burns more TRU and results in a reduction of the out-of-pile TRU inventory and LTH with low deployment capacity. This study shows that the mixing strategy of FRs of low and high CR can reduce the SF and TRU inventories with lower deployment capacity as compared with a single deployment of FRs of high CR.