Analysis of control rod worth of hafnium instead of silver-indium-cadmium alloy

With the breakthrough of the separation technology of zirconium and hafnium, the nuclear-level sponge hafnium has been produced on an industrial scale, which promotes the hafnium for traditional control material replacement in the domestic nuclear power plants. From the perspective of control rod worth and material burnup properties, this paper performed neutronic analysis and discussed the possibility of replacing AIC control rod with natural hafnium (Hf), hafnium boride (HfB₂), hydrogenated hafnium (HfH_X) and hafnium oxide (HfO₂). The analysis results indicated that: from the perspective of increasing the control rods worth, the priority of replacing AIC is Hf B₂ > HfH₃ > Hf; From the perspective of engineering application, Hf would be applied to domestic mainstream power plants as the next generation control rod materials for Silver-Indium-Cadmium replacement (AIC). (authors)