Neutronic performance of 208Pb-Bi eutectic-cooled fast reactor with uranium nitride fuel (enriched 15N) Nina Widiawati1, Zaki Suud2,3, Dwi Irwanto2,3, Sidik Permana2,3
1 Research Center for Nuclear Reactor Technology, BRIN, Indonesia
2Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
3Department of nuclear science and engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
Abstract
Fast reactors (FRs) require more uranium enrichment than LWRs and fuel reprocessing. The solution proposed to address these issues is to use the modified CANDLE burnup scheme on the reactor core. The use of uranium nitride (UN) as fuel was proposed because the UN fuel has several advantages, such as high melting point, high heavy metal density, and large thermal conductivity. However, using UN as a fuel can produce the radioactive isotope 14C via the reaction 14N(n,p)14C. Therefore in this study, a neutronic analysis was performed in a modified CANDLE fast reactor employing UN and UN (enriched 15N) as fuel using SRAC. The modified CANDLE fast reactor fueled with UN (99% 15N) has a higher keff than the UN-fueled reactor with similar parameters. Similarly, the atomic density of fissile nuclides and power density are higher because the 15N isotope has a smaller neutron capture cross-section than the 14N isotope.
Keywords: Fast reactor- Modified CANDLE- keff- UN(enriched 15N)
