Time-Dependent Neutronic Analysis of a Power-Flattened Gas Cooled Accelerator Driven System Fuelled with Thorium, Uranium, Plutonium, and Curium Dioxides TRISO Particles

Abstract

This study presents the power flattening and time-dependent neutronic analysis of a conceptual helium gas cooled Accelerator Driven System (ADS) loaded with TRISO (tristructural-isotropic) fuel particles. Target material is lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE). ThO2, UO2, PuO2, and CmO2 TRISO particles are used as fuel. PuO2 and CmO2 fuels are extracted from PWR-MOX spent fuel. Subcritical core is radially divided into 10 equidistant subzones in order to flatten the power produced in the core. Tens of thousands of these TRISO fuel particles are embedded in the carbon matrix fuel pebbles as five different cases. The high-energy Monte Carlo code MCNPX 2.7 with the LA150 library is used for the neutronic calculations. Time-dependent burnup calculations are carried out for thermal fission power (Pth) of 1000 MW using the BURN card. The energy gain of the ADS is in the range of 99.98–148.64 at the beginning of a cycle. Furthermore, the peak-to-average fission power density ratio is obtained between 1.021 and 1.029 at the beginning of the cycle. These ratios show a good quasi-uniform power density for each case. Furthermore, up to 155.1 g 233U and 103.6 g 239Pu per day can be produced. The considered system has a high neutronic capability in terms of energy multiplication, fissile breeding, and spent fuel transmutation with thorium utilization.