LWR/TWR synergetic 2 tier fuel cycle
The Breed and Burn (B&B) reactors come in handy to deal with the large stock piles of depleted uranium, using it as fuel to power the reactor. The discharge fuel of B&B contains 10% of fissile plutonium. This study analyses the possible options in generating more energy while reducing the pl...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/422212 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/422212 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Nuclear reactors Nuclear energy Reactors nuclears Energia nuclear Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies::Energia nuclear |
| Sumario: | The Breed and Burn (B&B) reactors come in handy to deal with the large stock piles of depleted uranium, using it as fuel to power the reactor. The discharge fuel of B&B contains 10% of fissile plutonium. This study analyses the possible options in generating more energy while reducing the plutonium content by using a reconditioned B&B discharge to fuel Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). Three reprocessing processes with high proliferation resistance are considered namely, AIROX, Melt Refining and FLURO-OX process. Using AIROX processed fuel in a PWR core, no additional burnup can be achieved without compromising on the power density, and whereas when the PWR is fuelled with Melt refined fuel an additional burnup of 66 GWd/MTIHM can be achieved using the nominal power density. Melt refined fuel mixed with different types of fuels provides various options to incinerate fissile plutonium. Using smaller diameter pins an additional burnup of 95.2 GWd/MTIHM can be achieved. Using pure FLURO-OX processed fuel in a PWR core is not practical due to the positive reactivity coefficients. However with a slight modification in the FLURO-OX process uranium can be retained in the fuel, which can compensate for the positive reactivity coefficients. Fuelling PWR with such fuel an additional burnup of about 108.1 GWd/MTIHM can be achieved at the nominal power density. Instead of once through cycle, using twice burning cycle in PWR an additional burnup of about 120 GWd/MTIHM can be achieved. |
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