A Design Study of High Breeding Ratio Sodium Cooled Metal Fuel Core without Blanket Fuels

The metal fuel core is superior to the mixed oxide fuel core because of its high breeding ratio and compact core size resulting from hard neutron spectrum and high heavy metal densities. Utilizing these characteristics, a conceptual design for a high breeding ratio was performed without blanket fuel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of Power and Energy Systems Vol. 3; no. 1; pp. 126 - 135
Main Authors KOBAYASHI, Noboru, OGAWA, Takashi, OHKI, Shigeo, MIZUNO, Tomoyasu, OGATA, Takanari
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers 2009
Subjects
Breeding Ratio
Bundle Pressure Drop
Metal Fuel Core
Nuclear Energy
Nuclear Engineering
Nuclear Reactor
Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor
Sodium Void Worth
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Summary:The metal fuel core is superior to the mixed oxide fuel core because of its high breeding ratio and compact core size resulting from hard neutron spectrum and high heavy metal densities. Utilizing these characteristics, a conceptual design for a high breeding ratio was performed without blanket fuels. The design conditions were set so a sodium void worth of less than 8 $, a core height of less than 150 cm, the maximum cladding temperature of 650 °C, and the maximum fuel pin bundle pressure drop of 0.4MPa. The breeding ratio of the resultant core was 1.34 with 6wt% zirconium content fuel. Applying 3wt% zirconium content fuel enhanced the breeding ratio up to 1.40.
ISSN:1881-3062
1881-3062
DOI:10.1299/jpes.3.126