Reactor physics and safety aspects of various design options of a Russian light water reactor with rock-like fuels

This paper presents results of analytical studies on weapons grade plutonium incineration in VVER (640) medium size light water reactors using a special composition of rock-like fuel (ROX-fuel) to assure spent fuel long-term storage without its reprocessing. The main goal is to achieve high degree of plutonium incineration in once-through cycle. In this paper we considered two fuel compositions. In both compositions weapons grade plutonium is used as fissile material. Spinel (MgAl2O4) is used as the ‘preserving’ material assuring safe storage of the spent fuel. Besides an inert matrix, the option of rock-like fuel with thorium dioxide was studied. One of principal problems in the realization of the proposed approach is the substantial change of properties of the light water reactor core when passing to the use of the ROX-fuel, in particular: (i) due to the absence of 238U the Doppler effect playing a crucial role in reactor’s self-regulation and limiting the consequences of reactivity accidents, decreases significantly, (ii) no fuel breeding on one hand, and the quest to attain the maximum plutonium burnup on the other hand, would result in a drastical change of the fuel assembly power during the lifetime and, as a consequence, the rise in irregularity of the power density of fuel assemblies, (iii) both the control rods worth and dissolved boron worth decrease in view of neutron spectrum hardening brought on by the larger absorption cross-section of plutonium as compared to uranium, (iv) βeff is markedly reduced. All these distinctive features are potentially detrimental to the reactor nuclear safety. The principal objective of this work is that to identify a variant of the fuel composition and the reactor layout, which would permit neutralize the negative effect of the above-mentioned distinctive features.