Options on fuel handling systems for future sodium cooled fast reactors

The definition of innovative requirements for SFR (Sodium cooled Fast Reactors) are guided by significant improvements on economy, safety, environment, waste management and proliferation resistance. CEA, AREVA and EDF have achieved an extensive experience and significant expertise in SFR over the past 40 years of research/development and feedback on experiments. Some improvements are needed on the SFR to reach the GEN IV objectives. The reactor refueling system provides the ways of transporting, storing and handling reactor core fuel assemblies. The Fuel Handling System (FHS) impacts directly the general design of the reactor vessel, the reactor building and the nuclear island, their construction cost and the availability factor. Fuel handling design must take into account various items and in particular operating strategies such as core design and management, and core configuration. In addition, the feasibility of the Whole Core Discharge (WCD) is studied and consequences in terms of usability and availability are detailed. The various studies carried out in the framework of the Research-Development programs and for the construction of prototypes have led to the definition of two types of FHS: 1) A sodium route: this route is very interesting for operation flexibility but requires an external storage (filled with sodium) which penalize the investment cost. 2) A gas route: this route allows a reduction of the investment cost but operation gets more complicated and possibilities of fast Whole Core Discharge are limited. In the framework of the tripartite project (CEA, EDF and AREVA), we have then considered a 'Mixed' route mainly answering to the following objectives: - Reduction of the investment cost compared to the sodium route - Ability to make a Whole Core Discharge within a few months. After dealing with main constraints and assumptions linked to the SFR Fuel Handling System, we will detail in this paper the maximum fuel assemblies power acceptable for the various ways of FHS in order to comply with safety rules and maximum temperatures of pins, then we will also present the different considered routes (sodium, gas and mixed route), in order to compare them on technical and economic aspects. Finally, we will analyze their flexibility regarding Minor Actinides management