Study of a conceptual accelerator driven system loaded with thorium dioxide mixed with transuranic dioxides in TRISO particles

Abstract

Nuclear spent fuel management is one of the top major subjects in the utilization of nuclear energy. Hence, solutions to this problem have been increasingly researched in recent years. The basic aim of this work is to examine the fissile breeding and transuranic fuel transmutation potentials of a gas cooled accelerator-driven system. In line with this purpose, firstly, the conceptually designed system is optimized by using several target materials and fuel mixtures, from the point of neutronic. Secondly, three different material compositions, namely, pure lead bismuth eutectic (LBE), LBE+natural UO2, and LBE+15 % enrichment UO2, are considered as target material. The target zone is separated to two sub-zones but as one within the other. The outer sub-zone is pure LBE target, and the inner sub-zone is either UO2 or pure LBE target. The UO2 target sub-zone is cooled with helium gas. Finally, the thorium dioxide mixed with transuranic dioxides, discharged from PWR-MOX spent fuel, in pebbles composed of graphite and TRISO-coated spherical fuel particles, is used for breeding fissile fuel and transmuting transuranic fuels. Three different thorium-transuranic mixtures, (Th, Pu)O2, (Th, Cm)O2, (Th, Pu, MA)O2, are examined with various mixture fractions. The packing fractions of the fuel pebbles in the transmutation core and the tristructural-isotropic coated fuel particles in a pebble are assumed as 60 % and 29 %, respectively. The transmutation core is also cooled with a high-temperature helium coolant. In order to produce high-flux neutrons that penetrate through the transmutation core, the target is exposed to the continuous beams of 1 GeV protons. The computations have been carried out with the high-energy Monte Carlo code MCNPX using the LA150 library. The numerical outcomes show that the examined accelerator-driven system has rather high neutronic data in terms of the energy production and fissile fuel breeding.