Guido Mazzini

The use of Th in HTR: State of the art and implementation in Th/Pu fuel cycles

Nowadays nuclear is the only greenhouse-free source that can appreciably respond to the increasing worldwide energy demand. The use of Thorium in the nuclear energy production may offer some advantages to accomplish this task. Extensive R&D on the thorium fuel cycle has been conducted in many countries around the world. Starting from the current nuclear waste policy, the EU-PUMA project focuses on the potential benefits of using the HTR core as a Pu/MA transmuter. In this paper the following aspects have been analysed: (1) the state-of-the-art of the studies on the use of Th in different reactors, (2) the use of Th in HTRs, with a particular emphasis on Th-Pu fuel cycles, (3) an original assessment of Th-Pu fuel cycles in HTR. Some aspects related to Thorium exploitation were outlined, particularly its suitability for working in pebble-bed HTR in a Th-Pu fuel cycle. The influence of the Th/Pu weight fraction at BOC in a typical HTR pebble was analysed as far as the reactivity trend versus burn-up, the energy produced per Pu mass, and the Pu isotopic composition at EOC are concerned. Although deeper investigations need to be performed in order to draw final conclusions, it is possible to state that some optimized Th percentage in the initial Pu/Th fuel could be suggested on the basis of the aim we are trying to reach.

Cross Sections Influence on Monte Carlo Based Burnup Codes

This paper reports the results of a comparison among JEFF and ENDF/B datasets when used by SERPENT and MONTEBURNS codes on a GFR-like configuration. Particularly, it shows a comparison between the two Monte Carlo based codes, each one adopting three different cross sections dataset, namely JEFF-3.1, JEFF-3.1.2 and ENDF/B-VII.1. Calculations have been carried out on the Allegro reactor, i.e. an experimental GFR-like facility that should be built in EU as GFR demonstrator. Results concern nuclear parameters as effective multiplication factor and fluxes, as well as the atomic densities for some important nuclides versus burnup.Copyright

Comparison Between PARCS and MCNP6 Codes on VVER1000/V320 Core

Research Centre Rez solves several safety related projects dealing with safety of Czech NPPs, some of which require fully functioning Three Dimensional (3D) model of the reactor core. While in a number of safety analysis of various accident scenarios it is sufficient to use one point reactor kinetics, there are selected types of accidents in which it is useful to model the space (3D) neutron kinetics, in particular control rod ejections, boron dilution scenarios, including transitions from design basis to beyond design basis accidents. This paper is focused to analyze the present model of the core of VVER1000/V320 reactor. Which is applicable for 3D modeling of neutron kinetics in selected design and beyond design basis accidents. The model is based on a cross-sections library created by SCALE 6.1.2/TRITON simulations. PARCS 3.2 code uses homogenized cross-sections libraries to calculate neutronic and other core parameters of the PWR reactors. Similar model is prepared with MCNP6 for comparison between deterministic (Pn spherical-harmonics method used in PARCS) and the stochastic (Monte Carlo) approach (used in MCNP6). Such comparison will serve as a demonstration of the capability of the PARCS code for VVER1000/V320 analyses.Copyright