ADS National Programmes: India

Initial preliminary studies in India on ADS concepts were aimed toward applications such as, one way coupled booster reactor concept, thorium burner concept, enhancement of breeding rate of thorium– fueled fast reactors, and to incinerate Pu and minor actinides discharged from heavy water and fast reactors. These studies led to a roadmap on development of ADS subsystems in India, which was chalked out initially in June 2001. It was realized in these studies that the most challenging subsystem in terms of technology development and capital investment for ADS in India would be the high intensity proton accelerator, and that it must be accomplished in phased manner. Of the two alternative accelerator types, viz. the cyclotron and linear accelerator (linac), it is concluded that only linac would provide the necessary intense beam current for ADS applications. The energy amplifier (EA) scheme, with lead (45.5%) bismuth (55.5%) eutectic (LBE) as target & coolant, which was proposed in the early nineties would be one of the desired configurations of ADS for Indian applications. Additionally, subcritical reactor core of Indian Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), with advantages of its low fission power density, and neutron economy is also a candidate among various ADS reactor configurations. These options of ADS configurations for thorium utilization are based on the neutronic properties of ²³³U isotope as fissile fuel, which are more or less similar in thermal and in moderately fast neutron spectra