Open AccessCriticality safety analysis of spent fuel pool for a PWR using UO2, MOX, (Th-U)O2 and (TRU-Th)O2 fuels
Author(s) -
Cláubia Pereira,
Jéssica P. Achilles,
F. Cardoso,
Victor F. Castro,
Maria Auxiliadora F. Veloso
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
brazilian journal of radiation sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2319-0612
DOI - 10.15392/bjrs.v7i3a.833
Subject(s) - mox fuel , burnup , nuclear engineering , criticality , pressurized water reactor , spent nuclear fuel , spent fuel pool , thorium fuel cycle , nuclear fuel , environmental science , plutonium , enriched uranium , plutonium 240 , waste management , radiochemistry , uranium , materials science , chemistry , engineering , plutonium 239 , nuclear physics , physics , neutron , fission , metallurgy
A spent fuel pool of a typical Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) was evaluated for criticality studies when it uses reprocessed fuels. PWR nuclear fuel assemblies with four types of fuels were considered: standard PWR fuel, MOX fuel, thorium-uranium fuel and reprocessed transuranic fuel spiked with thorium. The MOX and UO2 benchmark model was evaluated using SCALE 6.0 code with KENO-V transport code and then, adopted as a reference for other fuels compositions. The four fuel assemblies were submitted to irradiation at normal operation conditions. The burnup calculations were obtained using the TRITON sequence in the SCALE 6.0 code package. The fuel assemblies modeled use a benchmark 17x17 PWR fuel assembly dimensions. After irradiation, the fuels were inserted in the pool. The criticality safety limits were performed using the KENO-V transport code in the CSAS5 sequence. It was shown that mixing a quarter of reprocessed fuel withUO2 fuel in the pool, it would not need to be resized