径向步进倒料行波堆的数值研究

行波堆是一种可实现自持增殖-燃耗的新概念快堆,它可直接使用天然铀、贫铀、钍等可转换核材料,实现非常高的燃料利用率。基于行波堆的原理,提出了具有现实应用价值的径向步进倒料行波堆的概念,并将其与典型钠冷快堆的设计相结合,采用数值方法对由外而内的径向步进行波堆二维渐近稳态特性进行了研究。计算结果表明:渐近keff随倒料循环周期近似抛物线分布,而渐近燃耗随倒料循环周期线性增长,满足临界条件的倒料循环周期中最大燃耗可达38%;堆芯功率峰随着倒料循环周期的增长,从燃料卸出区(堆芯中心)向燃料导入区(堆芯外围)移动,功率峰值逐渐降低,在高燃耗情况下,靠近堆芯中心的轴向功率分布呈M形。

Numerical Study of Radial Stepwise Fuel Load Reshuffling Traveling Wave Reactor

Traveling wave reactor is a new conceptual fast breeder reactor, which can adopt natural uranium, depleted uranium and thorium directly to realize the self sustainable breeding and burning to achieve very high fuel utilization fraction. Based on the mechanism of traveling wave reactor, a concept of radial stepwise fuel load reshuffling traveling wave reactor was proposed for realistic application. It was combined with the typical design of sodium-cooled fast reactors, with which the asymptotic characteristics of the inwards stepwise fuel load reshuffling were studied numerically in two-dimension. The calculated results show that the asymptotic k_eff parabolically varies with the reshuffling cycle length, while the burnup increases linearly. The highest burnup satisfying the reactor critical condition is 38%. The power peak shifts from the fuel discharging zone (core centre) to the fuel uploading zone (core periphery) and correspondingly the power peaking factor decreases along with the reshuffling cycle length. In addition, at the high burnup case the axial power distribution close to the core centre displays the M-shaped deformation.