Fuel cycle cost evaluation to burnable absorber and feed assemblies

The comparative analysis of fuel cycle cost for 16 equilibrium cores was performed to evaluate the fuel cycle cost depending on the combination of four different types of burnable absorbers (BAs) and feed assemblies for 18 month cycle operation of Westinghouse type 3-loop plant using 17X17 Vantage 5H fuel. The BAs considered are IFBA, Gadolinia, Erbia, and W ABA and four cases of number of feed assemblies are 56, 00, 64, and 68. The optimal and practical combination of BA and number of feed assemblies is proposed. The optimum equilibrium core loading patterns for 16 cases were generated by using self-generating method and core design characteristics and the fuel cycle cost were evaluated for each loading pattern. The cycle lengths for all the cases were fixed as 480 EPFD to exclude effect of capital cost. Uranium ore cost, conversion cost, enrichment cost, fabrication cost, and back-end cycle cost were considered to evaluate fuel cycle cost. When considering the front-end cycle cost only, with the assumption of 8% discount rate, the 60 feed assemblies with using WABA case shows best result from the economic viewpoint. But the cost differences among the cases of using WABA, IFBA, and Gadolinia were negligible. And it was founded that the major factor for fuel cycle cost is BA price. In view of the core design characteristics, IFBA and Erbia were found to be more flexible than WABA and Gadolinia