Simulation of an Accelerator Driven Subcritical Core with Mixed Uranium-Thorium Fuel

• 作者: Ali Pazirandeh Laia Shirmohammadi
• 来源期刊: 世界工程和技术(英文)
• 学科: 医学
• 关键词: ACCELERATOR Driven SUBCRITICAL Reactor THORIUM MCNPX NEUTRONIC Calculation
• 年，卷（期）: 2015,（3）
• 页码范围: 328-333
• 页数: 6页
• 分类号: R73

摘要

During recent years, a new generation of nuclear reactors, known as “Accelerator Driven Subcritical Reactors”, has been developed. One of the new application aspects for such reactors (besides transmutation of High Level Waste and burning Minor Actinides) is usage of thorium as nuclear fuel. In this work a subcritical core in experimental scale is simulated by MCNPX code. The core contains two types of fuel assemblies: (85% ThO2 + 15% UO2) and MOX (U-Pu). In the first step, only the thorium-contained fuel assemblies are loaded into the core. Criticality calculations using MCNPX show that the keff is so low that the fuel assemblies cannot run the subcritical core. This implies that MOX (U-Pu) assemblies must be loaded as well. Neutronic parameters of the thorium- fueled Accelerator Driven Subcritical core are then calculated as well as some other parameters related to accelerator coupled with the core. The main objective of this simulation is to study the behavior of Accelerator Driven Subcritical core with thorium assemblies.