The Effects of Fuel Burnup on Incremental Cross Sections in Actinide Fuels in CANDU Reactors

Abstract

The burning of transuranic actinides from spent fuel in current thermal reactors is an active area of nuclear safety research. Mixed oxides can be used to combine actinides and natural uranium to produce a high burnup fuel suitable for use in CANDU® . Proper safety assessment is needed to ensure standard operational behavior is maintained with advanced fuels. The interaction of control devices with the fuel and the incremental cross sections should be explored over the full burnup cycle of the fuel to determine the changes that may result from composition changes in the fuel over the burnup lifetime.