Equilibrium thorium fuel loading in VVER-1000 reactor

Author

Frybort, Jan

Author_Institution

Dept. of Nucl. Reactors, Czech Tech. Univ. in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

fYear

2014

fDate

12-14 May 2014

Firstpage

693

Lastpage

697

Abstract

Thorium can be utilized in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) as ThO₂ fuel matrix supported by fissile materials. In this analysis, VVER-1000 reactor was taken as a representative of the PWR reactor group. The thorium fuel matrix was mixed with fissile material in form of pure ²³³U, enriched uranium (19.7 % enrichment) and Reactor-Grade plutonium. Whole fuel cycles were analysed by ANDREA nodal code with diffusion data prepared by HELIOS calculations. Equilibrium fuel loadings were achieved for all fuel composition for four different lengths of fuel loadings reaching from 4×12 months to 5×18 months. The process of reaching the equilibrium loadings, fissile material requirements, and fundamental operational parameters are presented.

Keywords

fission reactor fuel; fission reactor operation; light water reactors; ANDREA nodal code; HELIOS calculations; PWR reactor group; ThO₂ fuel matrix; VVER-1000 reactor; diffusion data; enriched uranium; equilibrium fuel loadings; equilibrium thorium fuel loading; fissile materials; fuel composition; fuel cycles; fundamental operational parameters; pressurized water reactor; reactor-grade plutonium; Assembly; Doppler effect; Fuels; Inductors; Loading; Materials; Neutrons; ANDREA; VVER-1000; thorium;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electric Power Engineering (EPE), Proccedings of the 2014 15th International Scientific Conference on

Conference_Location

Brno

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EPE.2014.6839432

Filename

6839432