Sodium-cooled fast reactor core designs for transmutation of MHR spent fuel

Abstract

In this paper, the core design analyses of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) are performed for the effective transmutation of the DB (DeepBurn)-MHR (Modular Helium Reactor). In this concept, the spent fuels of DB-MHR are transmutated in SFRs with a closed fuel cycle after TRUs from LWR are first incinerated in a DB-MHR. We introduced two different type SFR core designs for this purpose, and evaluated their core performance parameters including the safety-related parameters. In particular, the cores are designed to have lower transmutation rate relatively to our previous work so as to make the fuel characteristics more feasible. The first type cores which consist of two enrichment regions are typical homogeneous annular cores and they rate 900MWt power. On the other hand, the second type cores which consist of a central non-fuel region and a single enrichment fuel region rate relatively higher power of 1500MWt. For these cores, the moderator rods (YH1.8) are used to achieve less positive sodium void worth and the more negative Doppler coefficient because the loading of DB-MHR spent fuel leads to the degradation of these safety parameters. The analysis results show that these cores have low sodium void worth and negative reactivity coefficients except for the one related with the coolant expansion but the coolant expansion reactivity coefficient is within the typical range of the typical SFR cores.