THE LEAD COOLED FAST REACTOR BENCHMARK BREST-300: ANALYSIS WITH SENSITIVITY METHOD

摘要

Sustainable development of atomic energy will require development of new types of reactors able to exceed the limits of the existing reactor types in terms of optimum use of natural fuel resources, reduction in the production of long-lived radioactive waste, economic and safety competitiveness. Lead cooled fast neutrons reactor is one of the most interesting candidates with a potential to address these needs. BREST-300 is a 300 MWe lead cooled fast reactor developed by the NIKIET (Russia) with a deterministic safety approach which aims to exclude reactivity margins greater than the delayed neutron fraction. The development of innovative reactors (lead coolant, nitride fuel...) and fuel cycles with new constraints such as cycle closure or actinide burning, requires new technologies and new data from various disciplines: fuel types, fuel designs and fuel reprocessing. In this connection, the tool and neutron data used for the calculational analysis of reactor characteristics requires thorough validation, even if computational codes in Russia and France relies to the calculation of fast reactors' parameters and "fast" experiments. NIKIET developed a reactor benchmark fitting of design type calculational tools (including neutron data). In the frame of technical exchanges between the NIKIET and the EDF (Electricite De France), results of this benchmark calculation concerning the principal parameters of fuel evolution and safety parameters has been intercompared , in order to estimate the uncertainties and validate the codes for calculations of these new kind of reactors. Different codes and cross-sections data have been used, and sensitivity studies have been performed to understand and quantify the uncertainties sources.