Comprehensive Study of Lattice Cell Calculations for Thorium Based Fuel Cycle in Light Water Reactors Using SRAC Code

摘要

The designers of the innovative reactors have proposed a number of approaches to increasing resource efficiency. Adding thorium, a fertile material, to the fuel is considered in this report. Under this approach, a large portion of the reactor output is produced by fissioning of the ~(233)U resulting from neutron capture by thorium, which results in reduced requirements for naturally-occurring fissile uranium (~(235)U). The proliferation potential of the light water reactor fuel cycle may be significantly reduced by utilization of thorium as a fertile component of the nuclear fuel.rnThe concept of using Th-~(233)U as fuel has been applied to an existing LWR design as compare with another fuel cycles (UO2 and MOX). SRAC code is extensive used to investigate the lattice cell problem.