Design study of Thorium-232 and Protactinium-231 based fuel for long life BWR

Abstract

A preliminary design study for the utilization of thorium added with 231Pa based fuel on BWR type reactor has been performed. In the previous research utilization of fuel based Thorium-232 and Uranium-233 show 10 years operation time with maximum excess-reactivity about 4.075% dk/k. To increase reactor operation time and reduce excess-reactivity below 1% dk/k, Protactinium (Pa-231) is used as Burnable Poison. Protactinium-231 has very interesting neutronic properties, which enable the core to reduce initial excess-reactivity and simultaneously increase production of 233U to 231Pa in burn-up process. Optimizations of the content of 231Pa in the core enables the BWR core to sustain long period of operation time with reasonable burn-up reactivity swing. Based on the optimization of fuel element composition (Th and Pa) in various moderation ratio we can get reactor core with longer operation time, 20 ∼ 30 years operation without fuel shuffling or refuelling, with average power densities maximum of about 35 watt/cc, and maximum excess-reactivity 0.56% dk/k. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.