Neutronics Simulation of Burnup-dependent Swelling of Metallic Fuel in a Linear Breed-and-Burn Fast Reactor (B&BR)

摘要

The burnup-dependent swelling of the metallic fuel slug has been performed using the Monte Carlo code McCARD. The amount of the radial and axial swelling of the metallic fuel are taken from the irradiation results in EBR-Ⅱ. It is confirmed that performance of the B&BR core is substantially decreased when the burnup-dependent fuel swelling is considered. The first factor is the reduction of the fuel density when axial fuel swelling is considered for the U-Zr metallic fuel. Another factor is the bonding sodium which can impair the neutron economy. It is concluded that the actual burnup-dependent fuel swelling should be considered for accurate analysis of the long-life B&BR loaded with U-Zr metallic fuel.