Neutronic design studies for an unattended, low power reactor

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is involved in the design and demonstrations of a small, long-lived nuclear heat and electric power source for potential applications at remote sites where alternate fossil energy systems would not be cost effective. This paper describes the neutronic design analysis that was performed to arrive at two conceptual designs, one using thermoelectric conversion, the other using an organic Rankine cycle. To meet the design objectives and constraints a number of scoping and optimization studies were carried out. The results of calculations of control worths, temperature coefficients of reactivity and fuel depletion effects are reported