The investigation of burnup characteristics using the serpent Monte Carlo code for a sodium cooled fast reactor

Abstract

In this research, we investigated the burnup characteristics and the conversion of fertile 232Th into fissile 233U in the core of a Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR). The SFR fuel assemblies were designed for burning 232Th fuel (fuel pin 1) and 233U fuel (fuel pin 2) and include mixed minor actinide compositions. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using Serpent Code1.1.19 to compare with CRAM (Chebyshev Rational Approximation Method) and TTA (Transmutation Trajectory Analysis) method in the burnup calculation mode. The total heating power generated in the system was assumed to be 2000 MWth. During the reactor operation period of 600 days, the effective multiplication factor (keff) was between 0.964 and 0.954 and peaking factor is 1.88867.