Advanced Fuel Cycle Options-Extended Burnup and Low Leakage Core Designs for Spent Fuel Volume Reduction

Abstract

This paper addresses the advantages and disadvantages of using very high fuel burnup, reinsertion, and low leakage designs in advanced fuel cycle light water reactor cores as a technique to reduce vessel fluence, and total volume of spent fuel discharged into the waste management stream. The results demonstrate how to attain practical high burnup core designs using the Penn State Fuel Management Package (PSFMP, i.e., LEOPARD, MCRAC, ADMARC, OPHAL computer codes)1. The PSFMP can be used to scope out fuel management strategies, that can be verified with standard utility and vendor design calculations, such as CASMO and SIMULATE2. This paper focuses on the practical use of such advanced fuel designs to: (a) achieve very high discharge burnups, (b) produce low leakage at the periphery, (c) have 18 or 24 month cyc1es, and (d) maintain safety margins, peak power levels, thermal-hydraulic limits, non-positive moderator temperature coefficients. Parametric studies that show the effects of batch enrichments, loading patterns, power distributions vs. BPRs, and batch loading options (3 or 4 batches and/or split batch) are presented. Evaluations of practical and optimal extended burnup core designs, using the PSFMP, show that very high burnup core designs are not only attainable, but are most cost-effective and beneficial lo the environment in terms of waste reduction.