Analytical dependence of burnup on enrichment of prospective fuel and parameters of reactors fuel campaign

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the definition of an analytical expression for estimating the burnup depth of nuclear fuel depending on its enrichment level, the periodicity of refueling, thermal stressthermal stress and the duration of the time period between refueling (reactor campaign) in a wide range of changes in key parameters for different types of thermal neutron reactors. The analytical expressions obtained in the work for the burnup depth are compared with numerous neutron physics calculations and experimental data from different authors for uranium fuel enrichment up to 9%. Calculations of the fuel share of the cost of electricity of nuclear power plants with PWR type reactors were performed and its sensitivity to changes in burnup depth and enrichment of fuel, the refueling periodicity, as well as to market prices for natural uranium, conversion, enrichment, fabrication of fuel assemblies and SNF handling were determined.

Keywords

• NPP
• nuclear fuel burnup
• enrichme