A particle-bed gas-cooled fast reactor core design for waste minimization

The issue of waste minimization in advanced reactor systems has been investigated using the Particle-Bed Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (PB-GCFR) design being developed and funded under the U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (USDOE NERI) Programme. Results indicate that for the given core power density and constraint on the maximum TRU enrichment allowable, the lowest amount of radio-toxic transuranics to be processed and hence sent to the repository is obtained for long-life core designs. Calculations were additionally done to investigate long-life core designs using LWR spent fuel TRU and recycle TRU, and different feed, matrix and reflector materials. The recycled TRU and LWR spent TRU fuels give similar core behaviours, because of the fast spectrum environment which does not significantly degrade the TRU composition. Using light elements as reflector material was found to be unattractive because of power peaking problems and large reactivity swings. The application of a lead reflector gave the longest cycle length and lowest TRU processing requirement. Materials compatibility and performance issues require additional investigation. (author)