Preliminary Conceptual Design for a Multipurpose Experimental Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor

A conceptual nuclear design was done for a 100MWe multi-purpose sodium cooled fast reactor core for both research and experiment as a pre-feasibility study. Challenging goals for a small sized core were set up. Cycle length should be longer than 4 month with low enriched uranium-only fuels in a U-Zr metal alloy form. Overall design features are chosen from previous design concept - advanced burner test reactor (ABTR). Number of fuel assemblies and reflector assemblies were increased from 54 to 66 and from 78 to 207 respectively, resulting in increase of core radius to 180cm. In the reflector zone, there was enough space to install three independent fuel test loops in which different type of coolants and fuels might be tested. Fuel pin size was selected to be 0.737cm through a parametric study with database for U-Zr metal fuels tested in EBR-II. Core height was optimized to be 87cm after a parametric study on core size. Target flux levels at both fuel test assemblies and material test assemblies were 3.0×10¹⁵n/cm²-sec. Most of performance parameters as well as safety parameters were satisfied with goals except a flux level at the MTA. Overall safety aspects of the reactor is better than any other previous SFR design concepts