A NEW APPROACH FOR THE SYSTEMS DEDICATED TO TRANSMUTATION: THE REACTOR WITH COMPENSATED BETA

摘要

Hybrid systems are often presented as a solution with a future to incinerate nuclear waste. Indeed, the presence of minor actinides in fuel degrades certain neutron parameters significant for safety ― like the effective beta ― and makes difficult the realisation of a critical core dedicated to transmutation. The operation of a core in subcritical mode eliminates these problems. However, the design of a hybrid system of industrial size is rather complicated due to the power of the accelerator. This paper proposes a new approach which tends to solve the problem upstream, i.e. to compensate for the intrinsic weakness of beta. The principle rests on the use of an adequate coupling between the accelerator and the neutron flux so as to simulate additional delayed neutrons. Thus, the level of subcriticality of the core can be very small and a commercial accelerator could be used. The whole of the system behaves as a critical reactor having sufficient beta.