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Abstract
Zoltan Perko, Sandor Feher, Jan Leen Kloosterman, and Stuart Christie,
Recycling of VVER Minor Actinides in a Gas-cooled Fast Reactor,
International Conference on the Physics of Reactors, "Advances in Reactor Physics to power the Nuclear Renaissance" (PHYSOR-2010), Pittsburgh, USA (2010).
The Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GCFR) is one of the six Generation-IV reactor designs, which has the potential
of efficiently consuming Minor Actinides (MAs) due to its hard neutron spectrum.
In this study, the possibility of using the reference GFR600 design as a MA burner was examined,
assuming an initial MA composition characteristic to that of VVER440 spent fuel (SNF).
For the calculations, the KENO-VI Monte Carlo code and the ORIGEN burnup code of the SCALE5.1 system were used,
applying a precise 3-D reactor model.
Burnup studies were performed for cores with different initial MA contents.
Besides the reactivity swing, the fuel inventory and delayed neutron fraction were calculated as a function of burnup.
Multiple recycling of MAs was considered as well, assuming two recycling strategies: one feeding only depleted uranium
after the first cycle, and one feeding MAs each cycle.
Furthermore a comparison has been made with the results using MAs and plutonium from LWR spent fuel.
It is concluded that the isotopic composition of the Pu has a strong effect on the reactivity swing.
The loss of reactivity is significantly larger when using Pu from VVER SNF, and the reactivity swing
does not turn positive when MAs from VVER SNF are added to the fuel.
The MA burning capability of the reactor is to a large extent determined by the composition of the MAs and the Pu.
Mainly Am is destroyed when using the MAs and Pu from LWR SNF, and Np when using those from VVER SNF.
For the same amount of MAs in the fuel, the delayed neutron fraction in the first cycles is higher
when recycling VVER actinides. This difference disappears in later cycles.
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