Published June 2018 | Version v1
Miscellaneous

Uranium nitride fuels for application in Candu reactors

  • 1. Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan, Brinellvagen 8, 11428 Stockholm (Sweden)
  • 2. Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario K7K 7B4 (Canada)

Description

The physics of uranium nitride fuels used in Candu-6 reactors has been assessed by means of full core Monte-Carlo simulations. It is shown that the application of Unat15N allows for increasing the average residence time of a fuel bundle from 210 to 360 days, as compared to a conventional UnatO2 fuel. Whereas a 20% increase in coolant void worth is observed, the total power coefficient is reduced by half, due to a change in sign of the Doppler coefficient. Moreover, thanks to the better thermal conductivity of Un, the margin to fuel melt is raised considerably. Hence, uranium nitride could constitute a more efficient fuel for Candu reactors, while possibly allowing to extend the grace time for actuation of shut-down during a power transient. (Author)

Availability note (English)

Available from the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Centro de Informacion y Documentacion, 52750 Ocoyoacac, Estado de Mexico (MX), e-mail: mclaudia.gonzalez@inin.gob.mx

Additional details

Publishing Information

Publisher
Sociedad Nuclear Mexicana
Imprint Place
Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico)
Imprint Pagination
9 p.

Conference

Title
reactor physics paving the way towards more efficient systems
Acronym
PHYSOR 2018
Dates
22-26 Apr 2018
Place
Cancun, Q. R. (Mexico)