Preliminary Study on Neutronics Characteristics of Thorium-based Supercritical Water-cooled Fast Reactor

Abstract

Thorium is a hopeful alternative fuel resource for nuclear power to meet the sustainable development requirement based on its abundance. Besides, it can help to minimize the production of transuranium, as plutonium (and thus the minor actinides) is not a byproduct in the thorium chain. Previously, thorium utilizations in LWR, PHWR and HTGR have been reviewed. As a Generation IV reactor, Supercritical Water-cooled Reactor has some different characteristics, especially for the fast spectrum case (SCFR). To better understand the neutronics characteristics of SCFR and the thorium utilization in SCFR, a preliminary study was carried out based on the pin cell analysis. The work mainly concentrates on the comparisons of spectrums and the burnup effects analysis.