TITLE:
Simulation of an Accelerator Driven Subcritical Core with Mixed Uranium-Thorium Fuel
AUTHORS:
Ali Pazirandeh, Laia Shirmohammadi
KEYWORDS:
Accelerator Driven Subcritical Reactor, Thorium, MCNPX, Neutronic Calculation
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of Engineering and Technology,
Vol.3 No.3C,
October
24,
2015
ABSTRACT: During recent years, a new generation of
nuclear reactors, known as “Accelerator Driven Subcritical Reactors”, has been
developed. One of the new application aspects for such reactors (besides
transmutation of High Level Waste and burning Minor Actinides) is usage of
thorium as nuclear fuel. In this work a subcritical core in experimental scale
is simulated by MCNPX code. The core contains two types of fuel assemblies:
(85% ThO2 + 15% UO2) and MOX (U-Pu). In the first step, only the
thorium-contained fuel assemblies are loaded into the core. Criticality
calculations using MCNPX show that the keff is so low that the fuel assemblies
cannot run the subcritical core. This implies that MOX (U-Pu) assemblies must
be loaded as well. Neutronic parameters of the thorium- fueled Accelerator
Driven Subcritical core are then calculated as well as some other parameters
related to accelerator coupled with the core. The main objective of this
simulation is to study the behavior of Accelerator Driven Subcritical core with
thorium assemblies.