STUDY OF REACTOR SMART 330 MWt DESIGN USING ThO2-UO2 FUEL WITH WHOLE ASSEMBLY SEED AND BLANKET (WASB) CONCEPT

• Main Author: NURFAIDAH RAMDHANI (NIM: 20214004), RAHMI
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/23798
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The increase in the energy consumption and the expected growth in the nuclear capacity make it necessary to look for alternative fuels to replace uranium. The fuel chosen, which was also considered in the early stages of nuclear energy, is thorium. Thorium has some characteristics that make it valuable as a fuel, like its abundance, and also the low radiotoxicity of the waste generated. In this study, a new option for the once-through thorium fuel cycle for the SMART reactor core was investigated based on the Whole Assembly Seed and Blanket (WASB) concept. In WASB design, the seed units and blanket units separately occupy one full-size fuel assembly. In this study, the seed units was loaded with UO2 fuel rods and the blanket units was loaded with ThO2-UO2 . The configuration for each assemblies in both seed and blanket units were based on 17x17 KOFA (Korean Standard Fuel Assembly). Neutronics calculation was performed by using PIJ and CITATION modules of SRAC 2006 code with JENDL 3.3 as nuclear data library. The calculation showed that the criticality condition can be achieved by loading 4.95 wt.% enrichment of U-235 seed fuel assemblies while blanket fuel assemblies were loaded by 20 % UO2 (10 w/o enrichment) and 80% ThO2 for 990 Effective Full Power Days.