Ritsuo Yoshioka

Three-Region Core Design for 200-MW(electric) Molten-Salt Reactor with Thorium-Uranium Fuel

In this paper, an improved design for a small molten-salt reactor (MSR) that uses neutron flux flattening, which is referred to as FUJI-U3, is proposed. This reactor is a 200-MW(electric) power reactor, and its core contains graphite (as the moderator) and fuel salt. The fuel salt is composed of ThF4 as the fertile material, 233UF4 as the fissile material, and LiF-BeF2 as both the solvent and heat transfer medium. A basic improvement in FUJI-U3 is the introduction of the design concept of a three-region core in order to avoid the replacement of graphite, which is achieved by reducing the maximum neutron flux. Since there is a limit for irradiation growth in graphite, this reduction in the maximum neutron flux contributes to a longer lifetime of the graphite. Based on calculations using the nuclear analysis code SRAC95 and the burnup analysis code ORIGEN2, it is concluded that there is no need to replace the graphite moderator of FUJI-U3 for 30 yr. Further, the chemical-processing interval of the fuel salt is studied for 7.5, 15, and 30 yr. An increase in this time interval will also contribute to reduce maintenance and cost.

Optimal axial enrichment distribution of the boiling water reactor fuel under the Haling strategy

The axial enrichment distribution of boiling water reactor fuel is optimized to improve uranium utilization subject to constraints on thermal margins. It is assumed that the reactor is operated under the Haling strategy, so that determination of the enrichment distribution can be decoupled from the poison management. This nonlinear optimization problem is solved using a method of approximation programming, where each iteration step is formulated in terms of linear goal programming to handle infeasible problems. The core is represented by an axial one-dimensional model. The average enrichment of a two-region fuel can be slightly reduced by increasing the enrichment of the lower half rather than the upper half. The optimal solutions for a 24-region fuel, in which the enrichments of indivdual nodes can differ from one another, display double-humped enrichment distributions. The natural uranium blanket design is also investigated, and it is concluded that blanketed fuel is practically optimal using the Haling strategy.