NEUTRONIC INVESTIGATION ON THORIUM MOX FUEL IN VVER-1000 REACTOR ASSEMBLY Zuhair, W. Luthfi, R.A.P. Dwijayanto, M.D. Isnaini, Suwoto Latvian Journal of Physics and Technical Sciences, 2024 The accumulation of plutonium produced by LWR operations causes public concern related to its radiotoxicity and proliferation issue. Therefore, there is some interest in developing various methods for consuming plutonium through plutonium incineration i.e., by utilising thorium-based nuclear fuel. Thorium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel (Thorium MOX) is an attractive option considered for plutonium incineration. The aim of the study is to investigate the neutronic characteristics of Thorium MOX fuel in VVER-1000 nuclear reactor fuel assemblies. The VVER-1000 Benchmark model was utilised in the present study. A series of calculations were performed with the MCNP6 code and the ENDF/B-VII library. The calculation results show that a proper increase in Pu content could increase k inf of ThMOX fuel, so it could have almost the same k inf with MOX fuel or increase Pu content when needed. It was also shown that Thorium MOX fuel assembly had more negative Doppler reactivity due to neutron capture by thorium (232Th). The moderator temperature coefficient was found to be more negative than the Doppler coefficient, and it could be concluded that replacing uranium with thorium could reduce the amount of plutonium produced while increasing plutonium consumption.
THE EFFECT OF BURNABLE ABSORBERS ON CRITICALITY AND REACTIVITY COEFFICIENT OF VVER-1000 ASSEMBLY Z Zuhair, Wahid Luthfi, Muhammad Isnaini, S Sriyono, S Suwoto Nuclear Technology and Radiation Protection, 2024 Burnable absorbers play an important role in nuclear reactor safety and exploring their effect on the reactor core behavior is an important issue in the design and operation of the reactor core. The aim of the present work was to discover the effect of burnable absorbers on criticality and reactivity coefficient of VVER-1000 assembly. The calculations were conducted with a 3-D Monte Carlo transport code MCNP6 and ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear library. The Gd2O3 content varying from 0 wt.% to 8 wt.% was considered to complete the inter-comparison analysis between the criticality and the reactivity coefficients for three UO2+Gd2O3 fuel configurations. At the beginning of the cycle, there is a significant difference between the criticality (kinf) of assembly with and without Gd2O3, however, at the middle of the cycle those differences become very small and almost the same at the end of the cycle. The Doppler temperature coefficient values are always sufficiently negative and demonstrate a more negative trend with increasing gadolinium concentrations and fuel burnup. At beginning of the cycle, the moderator temperature coefficient value increases negatively as gadolinium concentration increases but, at middle of the cycle this trend does not occur. The fuel composition is predicted to be the reason behind this situation. At the end of cycle, there is no clear trend in the moderator temperature coefficient values with respect to Gd2O3 concentration. The absorbing effect of Gd2O3 appears to have diminished significantly. Overall, this research provides insights into the influence of the burnable absorbers on the neutronic parameters of the VVER-1000 assembly and its contribution to reactor safety.
Optimization of the UO2-Gd2O3 Fuel Assembly Arrangement Pattern in the SMR-NuScale Reactor Hery Adrial, Suwoto Suwoto, Muhammad Budi Setiawan, Ihda Husnayani, Zuhair Zuhair Aip Conference Proceedings, 2024 Small-scale Modular Reactor (SMR) is a type of PWR reactor that is currently developing. The NuScale reactor with a power of 160 MWt which is included in the SMR category provides space for researchers to develop the fuel assembly. This research was conducted with the aim of Optimization the arrangement of the NuScale reactor fuel assembly pattern using the MCNP 6 code with the ENDF/B-VII library. There are several types of fuel assembly in NuScale reactors. One of the fuel assemby that is focused on in this research is a fuel assembly that contains fresh UO2− Gd2O3 with an enrichment of 4.55% and has a Gd content of 8%. In order to optimize the arrangement pattern of the UO2−Gd2O3 fuel assembly, the infinity criticality and reactivity coefficients were calculated using the arrangement patterns of 32, 24, 16 and 8 Burnable Poisson. From the results of the research, the optimum number of Burnable Poissons in the fuel assembly is 24 pins for 8% Gd2O3. It is hoped that the results of the research can be used as complementary materials for complete neutronic calculations, safety parameters and analysis on the NuScale nuclear reactor core.
Neutronic Investigation of Integral Burnable Absorber (UO2-Gd2O3) Different Pattern Arrangement on Nuscale Reactor Fuel Assembly Suwoto Suwoto, Hery Adrial, Wahid Luthfi, Topan Setiadipura, Zuhair Zuhair Aip Conference Proceedings, 2024 The neutronic effect of location arrangement burnable absorber rod such as gadolinia (Gd2O3) on the reactivity control of integral Pressurized Water Reactor (iPWR) Nuscale reactor have been investigated. Ten fuel assemblies of 17x17 matrix array with different location arrangement and two gadolinia concentration were done. One Fuel Assembly (FA) was assumed as standard one and nine of FAs were analyzed containing of 2% and 8% gadolinia concentration on 32 burnable absorber fuel rods (UO2-Gd2O3) which placed it in different location of each FAs were investigated. The design of the Nuscale Fuel Assembly (FA) for the iPWR was created using the MCNP6 code to develop a 3D model. This was combined with the ENDF/B-VII.1 continuous nuclear data library. All calculations were done on Hot Full Power (HFP) and Hot Zero Power (HZP) condition. This article examines the neutronic characteristics of two types of Fuel Assemblies with UO2 enrichment of 4.55% 235U and differences concentration of 2% and 8% gadolinia as an integral fuel burnable absorber rods (UO2-Gd2O3), respectively. According to the calculation results, the discrepancy of the Doppler temperature coefficient of the fuel is relatively low compared to the standard assumption, i.e. -0.0476 to -2,989%Δk/k/K and -0.0749 to -4.25% Δk/k/K for 2% and 8% gadolinia concentration on an integral burnable absorber (UO2−Gd2O3) in different location arrangement, respectively. It was found that the different loading patterns arrangement of integral burnable absorber fuel (UO2-Gd2O3) in the Nuscale reactor FA show did not significantly affect the temperature reactivity coefficient value. The calculated results for both the Doppler temperature coefficient (DTC) and moderator temperature coefficient (MTC) indicate that their values fall within the range of the reference design value.
Study on temperature coefficient of reactivity for pebble bed reactor with thorium fuel International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 2018