Core design and analysis of a lead-bismuth cooled small modular reactor

摘要

Small modular reactors (SMR) are in great demands in the near future and the lead-based fast reactor is one of the most important directions in the development of SMR. In this paper, core design and analysis of a LEad-bismuth Small MOdular Reactor (LESMOR) was developed and examined to realize the notion of "LESS is MORE". LESMOR is a 300 MWt pool-type reactor where all facilities are mounted in a reactor vessel. Advanced nitride fuel is adopted, and the spent-plutonium is used as the driven fuel and thorium is used as the fertile fuel. Sub-channel analysis was performed in the assembly design using an in-house sub-channel code SUBAS, and the 11 x 11 scheme with a pitch-to-diameter (P/D) ratio of 1.4 was adopted. The full core neutronic performance was studied and evaluated in this paper. Results show that the reactor can be maintained critical for 20 years and the maximum radial power factor is 1.28. The steady-state thermal-hydraulic performance of the core was analyzed, including the characteristics of the mass flow distribution and the hottest assembly. The peaking fuel cladding temperature is 519.2 degrees C, and the maximum fuel center temperature is 723.4 degrees C, both within the temperature limit. This paper provides valuable information in the neutronic and thermal-hydraulic design and analysis of LBE nuclear reactor. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.