Neutronic performance of (U-Reprocessed/Th)O-2 fuel in CANDU 6 reactor

摘要

Utilization of thorium-based fuel in different reactors has been under investigation for several decades. In fact, excellent breeding features, rather flattened distribution of power as well as proliferation resistance of such fuel cycle draws the attention towards utilization of this type of fuel in nuclear power technology. In the present study, the neutronic performance of a typical thorium core loading is addressed. In this configuration, a mixed uranium and thorium oxide is loaded in CANDU 6 reactor. The obtained results determine a total peaking factor of 2.73 for the proposed configuration. The values obtained for the beta and the beta(eff) are 332 and 303 pcm respectively. The core reactivity coefficients were more negative comparing the CANDU 6 loaded with (UO2)-U-nat. The initial fissile material loaded in the core increased by a factor of 1.5 after 730 GWd burn-up. The obtained burn-up results show the core reactivity variations were highly positive after 6 and 12 h shut down because of considerably high buildup of Pa-233 after 1-year core operation at 2000 MW power.