Dynamic analysis of the dry process fuel sodium-cooled fast reactor cycle

Development of a Generation-IV (Gen-IV) reactor system was initiated with a different fuel and coolant from the conventional nuclear reactors, aiming at extensively increasing the safety and economic efficiency and drastically minimizing the radioactive wastes. Among the proposed Gen-IV concepts, the liquid metal reactor such as the lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) and the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is being widely studied due to the advantages of its ability of a full fissile plutonium and transuranics recycle which extends the natural resource use and curtails the waste production. Also, the dry process fuel cycle is recommended because it has proliferation-resistant characteristics since the sensitive materials are not separated during the process. In this study, a symbiotic fuel cycle between the once-through power plant and the SFR utilizing the dry process fuel has been analyzed. Important fuel cycle parameters such as the amount of spent fuel (SF) and the corresponding plutonium, minor actinides (MA) and fission products (FP) inventories are investigated and compared with those of the once-through fuel cycle. Parametric calculations were performed by the DYMOND code, which has been used for the analysis of the Gen-IV road map studies