Basic study on characteristics of some important equilibrium fuel cycles of PWR

Equilibrium fuel cycle characteristics of a light water reactor (LWR) with enriched uranium supply were evaluated. In this study, ®ve kinds of fuel cycles of 3000 MWt pressurized water reactor (PWR) were investigated, and a method to determine the uranium enrichment in order to achieve their criticality was presented. The results show that the enrichment decreases considerably with increasing number of con®ned heavy nuclides when U is discharged from the reactor. The required natural uranium was also evaluated for two di€erent enrichment processes. The amount of required natural uranium also decreases as well. On the other hand, when U is totally con®ned, the enrichment becomes unacceptably high. Furthermore, Pu and minor actinides (MA) con®ning seem e€ective to incinerate the discharged radio-toxic wastes.