POWER FLATTENING STUDY OF ULTRA-LONG CYCLE FAST REACTOR CORE

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1 Thorium Energy Conference 2015 (ThEC15) POWER FLATTENING STUDY OF ULTRA-LONG CYCLE FAST REACTOR CORE Taewoo Tak a, Jiwon Choe a, Yongjin Jeong a, Jinsu Park a, Deokjung Lee a,* and T. K. Kim b a Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, UNIST-gil 50, Eonyang-eup, Ulju-gun, Ulsan, , Korea ttwispy@unist.ac.kr, chi91023@unist.ac.kr, yjjeong09@unist.ac.kr, ccpj0310@unist.ac.kr b Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60564, USA tkkim@anl.gov * of corresponding author: deokjung@unist.ac.kr ABSTRACT A design study of Ultra-long Cycle Fast Reactor with a rated power of 1000 MWe (UCFR-1000) was performed to flatten its power distribution throughout the cycle depletion of the core. Several test cases have been introduced that have thorium loaded in the inner fuel region to lower the center power peak. Each test case had a different zoning strategy; different fuel forms were loaded in the upper blanket region and in the lower low enrichment uranium (LEU) region. It was demonstrated that the fuel zoning has a significant impact on the power flattening, and a gradual fuel zoning can achieve a flattened radial power distribution, and can consequently reduce the maximum power peak. Keywords: SFR, UCFR, Power peaking factor, Power flattening, Thorium fuel INTRODUCTION The Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) has become a leading technology especially among the six Generation IV (Gen-IV) reactor systems with many countries involved in its development. Many SFR concepts have been proposed, with a trade-off of some of the advantages and disadvantages of sodium-cooled reactors. Among the SFR concepts, various strategies have been developed for the construction of a long cycle reactor. The Ultra-long Cycle Fast Reactor (UCFR) has been developed with the aim of a 60-year operation without the need for refueling, and has a power rating of 2600 MWth [1]. The UCFR utilizes a breed-and-burn strategy to achieve such a long cycle by using low enrichment uranium (LEU) as an igniter, and natural uranium (NU) as a blanket material. Only the feasibility of the core from the neutronics point of view had been reported so far, so the optimization of UCFR was performed to consider thermal hydraulic feedback analysis and to mitigate the power peaking issue. Also, a study on the use of spent fuel in the blanket region has been performed [2]. It was noticed that the high reactor power rating combined with high peaking could cause a very high local power deposition and consequently violate the limits of temperature or fast neutron fluence in the fuel and clad regions [3]. A power flattening is a way to mitigate the radial power peaking factor for which there are several design strategies. Thorium fuel was used as a blanket material at the center of the core to flatten the radial power distribution of UCFR-1000 and its results show the radial peaking factor at the center decreases at the middle of cycle (MOC) [4]. In this study, several designs of UCFR-1000 were developed to flatten the power distribution, not only at MOC but also throughout the whole cycle. They have an inner fuel region whose radius is 36.7% of the whole fuel region in contrast to the previous thorium loaded UCFR-1000 with an inner fuel region of only 1/4 the radius of the whole fuel region. In addition, the LEU zoning has been performed to flatten the radial power distribution at the beginning of cycle (BOC) too.

2 Thorium Energy Conference 2015 (ThEC15) CORE DESIGN STRATEGY Core Design Requirement For the power flattening study, five core designs with variations in the inner core region and in the LEU zoning region, are introduced along with their geometry and fuel compositions. Table I shows the core design requirements of UCFR-1000 that all five designs should have in common: the power rating, the cycle length, and the geometry. The base fuel form is U-10Zr with thorium fuel partially added. The enrichment of LEU was determined to satisfy the criticality through the cycle of the cores, except for in the last test case. Table I: Core Design Parameters Parameters Value Thermal power [MWth / MWe] 2600 / 1000 Cycle length [effective full power years] 60 (Once through) Equivalent core diameter [m] 5.9 Fuel pin overall length [cm] 340 Active core height [cm] 240 Average linear power [W/cm] Core volume [kl] 42.4 Average volumetric power density [W/cc] 61.3 Core Layout Figure 1 shows the top view core layout of UCFR-1000 in the x-y cross section. The equivalent core diameter is 5.9 m and that of the outer and inner cores are 5.0 m and 1.8 m, respectively. There are a total of 19 control assemblies: 13 primary and 6 secondary. The primary system uses natural boron as an absorber material, and the secondary system uses 90 % enriched boron. The reflector, cladding, and structure material are HT-9, and sodium is used for the coolant material. Inner Driver (108) Reflector (324) Fig. 1: Radial core layout of UCFR-1000 Fuel zoning was performed from the reference core which has only one fuel form of U-10Zr. It was performed only for the blanket region in 1-zone case (Case 1), and for the LEU region as well as the blanket region in 2-zone case (Case2), and the other complex zoned cases. Figure 2 shows the core layout in the x-z cross section, which shows the fuel zoning state of each case. Case 1 core has only one fuel form of U- 10Zr in the bottom driver region, while Case 2 has various forms of fuels for power flattening even at BOC. The other cases have different case names according to LEU & blanket zoning condition, with wide center (WC) and narrow center (NC) region. They have one more LEU zone at the bottom of their LEU region, so that the power shape is more flattened than that of Case 2. Each case has a different inner blanket region size. The inner blanket has thorium loaded fuel to flatten the power shape at the MOC.

3 K-effective Thorium Energy Conference 2015 (ThEC15) Venting region, 50 cm U-10Zr, 170 cm U-30-Th- 10Zr LEU-10Zr, 70 cm LEU-7Zr LEU-30Th-10 LEU-7Zr Zr Axial reflector, 50 cm Case 1 Case 2 LEU- 10Zr LEU- 10Zr WC&WC NC&NC NC&WC Fig. 2: Core layouts of UCFR-1000 in x-z plane RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The analysis of the UCFR core designs and performance evaluation were done using McCARD code, which solves a continuous energy neutron transport equation using Monte Carlo method. Figure 3 shows the multiplication factor behavior of each core model. The reference case has a lifetime of 4 60-years and the multiplication 3 factors are smaller than 3. The 2 initial k-effective values of 1 thorium-loaded cores are smaller 0 than those of the reference core, 0.99 which is caused by the thorium fuel loading. Case WC&WC and Case 0.98 NC&WC have many points that do 0.97 not achieve criticality in their 0.96 operation time, which is due to the fact that they have a relatively large central thorium fuel region that is insufficient to make criticality. In the other cases, it can be found that larger inner core regions have lower multiplication factors. WC & WC NC & WC Operation Time (year) Fig. 3: K-effective vs. operation time The power flattening effect has been analyzed in the following figures. Figure 4 shows the normalized radial power distribution every 20 year. The values have been normalized with the axially integrated power of each assembly. There are control assemblies not only in the center, but also at 99 cm and 198 cm from the center; so the center spot in each graph is extrapolated and the two other spots in each graph are interpolated by averaging the two values of both sides. The figures show that the test cases achieve radial power flattening in comparison with the reference core. The peak of the reference core appears in the center fuel region at BOC, and moves to the peripheral region as the core burns. The peak of the Case 1 core also moves from the center to the peripheral region, but the peak factor at the center has decreased, especially at year 20, from 7 to 1.14 due to the effect of thorium fuel in the inner core region. On the other hand, the peaks of

4 Thorium Energy Conference 2015 (ThEC15) the Case 2 and Case NC&NC cores appear in the peripheral region at BOC due to the LEU zoning, and then move to the center. These two cases show more flattened radial power distribution than Case 1 throughout the operation time, except for the initial state. At the end of cycle (EOC), at year 60, it is noticeable that Case 2 and Case NC&NC have more flattened shapes while the reference and Case 1 have peripheral peaks. There are differences between Case 2 and Case NC&NC in the radial power distribution especially at year 0 and year 60. Case NC&NC has one more zone in its LEU region while Case 2 has only two zones. This is noted in the radial power distribution figure for year 0. The peripheral peak of Case NC&NC is lower than that of Case 2, and the distribution of Case NC&NC at year 0 and year 60 is more flattened than Case 2. At year 60, Case NC&NC has a maximum peak of 1.15 while the reference case has a peripheral peak of year 20 year 40 year 60 year Fig. 4: Normalized radial power distribution Figure 5 shows the average value distribution of the normalized radial power distribution every 10 years. The standard deviation from their average is 0.30, 0.24, 0.23, and 0.21 for the reference case, Case 1, Case 2, and Case NC&NC, respectively, which means that Case NC&NC has the most flattened shape for the radial power distribution throughout the operation time. Figure 6 shows the normalized axial power distribution of the center fuel assembly at BOC, MOC, and EOC that shows the active core movement. At BOC, the active core of each case stays within the bottom 70 cm of the core where the peaking factor is greater than other states and this needs to be lowered. The active core moves to the top of the core as the core burns and breeds. The speed of the active core movement is fastest for the reference case, and is slower for Case 1 due to the thorium blanket loading and flattened radial power shape. Case 2 and Case NC&NC have slower movements of the active cores than Case 1 because they have more flattened radial power shapes, which make the speed of the active core movements slower.

5 Thorium Energy Conference 2015 (ThEC15) Fig. 5: Average normalized radial power distribution BOC MOC NC&NC EOC Axial height from core bottom (cm) Fig. 6: Normalized axial power distribution CONCLUSIONS The flattening study of the radial power distribution of UCFR-1000 has been performed and compared for the several test models. The test models were designed by loading the thorium fuel only in the inner blanket for the 1-zone case, in both blanket and LEU regions for the 2-zone case, and in an additional zone for the other cases. It has been confirmed that more gradual fuel zoning can achieve more flattened radial power distribution and consequently decreases the maximum power peak. Case 1 has a center peak at BOC like the reference core but the peaking factor decreases due to the thorium fuel in the inner fuel region, which is shown by the fact that at year 20 it has decreased from 7 to In contrast to the reference and Case 1 cores, the peaks of Case 2 and Case NC&NC cores occur in the peripheral regions at BOC, which causes more flattened power shapes at MOC and EOC than in Case 1. At EOC, Case NC&NC has a maximum peak of 1.15 while the reference case has a maximum peak of As a next step for this study, reactivity coefficient analyses from thermal feedback would be required to demonstrate inherent safety features.

6 Thorium Energy Conference 2015 (ThEC15) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP). REFERENCES [1] T. Tak, D. Lee, and T.K. Kim, Design of ultra-long cycle fast reactor employing breed-andburn strategy, Nuclear Technology, 183., [2] T. Tak, D. Lee, T. K. Kim, and Ser Gi Hong, Optimization Study of Ultra-long Cycle Fast Reactor Core Concept, Annals of Nuclear Energy, 73., [3] H. Seo, J. Kim and I. Bang, Subchannel analysis of a small ultra-long cycle fast reactor core, Nuclear Engineering and Design, 270., [4] T. Tak, H. Lee, S. Choi, and D. Lee, Power Flattening Study for Ultra-long Cycle Fast Reactor UCFR-1000, Transactions of America Nuclear Society Summer Meeting, June 16-20, 2013.