Neutronic analysis of the dry process oxide fuel in Pb-Bi-cooled fast reactors

Instead of the sodium, the Pb-Bi is considered as another option for the coolant of the fast reactors because the Pb-Bi has some merits in the neutronics aspects. Since the atomic weight of the Pb and Bi is about 9 times heavier than that of Na, the Pb-Bi-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) has a harder neutron spectrum than that of Na-cooled Reactor (SFR). Consequently, the breeding ratio is expected to be enhanced. In this study, the reactor core analysis for the equilibrium fuel cycle of the Dry Reprocessed oxide Fuel (DRF) in a Pb-Bi-cooled fast reactor was performed for two selected reference cores: the Hybrid BN-600 benchmark core with a enlarged lattice pitch (Case 1) and the modified BN-600 core (Case 2). The core calculation was performed by the REBUS-3 code and the reactor characteristics such as the TRansUranic (TRU) enrichment, breeding ratio, peak linear power, burnup reactivity swing, etc. were calculated for the equilibrium core under a fixed management scheme