Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Neutronic design and evaluation of the solid microencapsulated fuel in LWR

  • Deng, Qianliang (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Li, Songyang (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Wang, Dingqu (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Liu, Zhihong (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Xie, Fei (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Zhao, Jing (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Liang, Jingang (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University) ;
  • Jiang, Yueyuan (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University)
  • Received : 2021.10.26
  • Accepted : 2022.03.14
  • Published : 2022.08.25
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Abstract

Solid Microencapsulated Fuel (SMF) is a type of solid fuel rod design that disperses TRISO coated fuel particles directly into a kind of matrix. SMF is expected to provide improved performance because of the elimination of cladding tube and associated failure mechanisms. This study focused on the neutronics and some of the fuel cycle characteristics of SMF by using OpenMC. Two kinds of SMFs have been designed and evaluated - fuel particles dispersed into a silicon carbide matrix and fuel particles dispersed into a zirconium matrix. A 7×7 fuel assembly with increased rod diameter transformed from the standard NHR200-II 9×9 array was also introduced to increase the heavy metal inventory. A preliminary study of two kinds of burnable poisons (Erbia & Gadolinia) in two forms (BISO and QUADRISO particles) was also included. This study found that SMF requires about 12% enriched UN TRISO particles to match the cycle length of standard fuel when loaded in NHR200-II, which is about 7% for SMF with increased rod diameter. Feedback coefficients are less negative through the life of SMF than the reference. And it is estimated that the average center temperature of fuel kernel at fuel rod centerline is about 60 K below that of reference in this paper.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to Jingang Liang for providing computing resources and other necessary help during this work.

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