AXIAL AND RADIAL GRADED ENRICHMENT OPTIONS FOR THE CANADIAN SCWR

摘要

The Canadian supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR) is a supercritical light water cooled,heavy water moderated, pressure tube type reactor. A significant advantage of the SCWR isits increased thermal efficiency compared to more conventional heavy water reactors (HWR),approximately 48% versus 33%, respectively. This thermodynamic advantage is partlyoffset by reductions in neutron economy and fuel utilization due to batch re-fuelling and theuse of in-core removable or burnable neutron absorbers for reactivity control and powershaping. In this paper, comparisons are made for axial and radial graded enrichment optionswhich are intended to mitigate the need for neutron absorbers and improve fuel utilization.