NEUTRONIC AND ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF ACCIDENT TOLERANT FUEL CONCEPTS FOR LIGHT WATER REACTORS

摘要

Ceramic clad coatings and alternative cladding materials are a few of many accident tolerant fuel (ATF) concepts. Each concept looks to reduce the amount of zirconium-alloy cladding available for reaction with high temperature steam. In order to be implemented into current and future light water reactors (LWR), ATF concepts must provide enhanced neutronic and economic performance over conventional Zircaloy-UO_2 fuel. This study used a single assembly pressurized water reactor (PWR) model to investigate reactivity drop, cycle length penalty, enrichment compensation, and reactivity coefficients, and a fuel cost model to understand economic performance. Findings show a desirable thickness of 10-30 μm for ceramic clad coatings to reduced neutronic economic penalties. For alternative cladding materials, SiC accommodates thicker cladding while other alloys, due to large neutronic penalties, require thin tubes and/or higher enrichment.