Title: Pin-by-pin minor actinides transmutation analysis for heterogeneous minor actinides target loaded core by reconstruction of neutron spectrum

Authors: Satoshi Takeda; Kazumasa Kobayashi; Takanori Kitada

Addresses: Division of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Yamada-oka 2-1, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan ' Division of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Yamada-oka 2-1, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan ' Division of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Yamada-oka 2-1, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan

Abstract: A fast reactor named as minor actinides target loaded core has been developed for effective minor actinides transmutation. The core has a number of minor actinides target assemblies, which contain zirconium-hydride pins. Therefore, the neutron spectrum strongly depends on the location of the fuel pin in the core. In order to evaluate the amount of pin-by-pin minor actinides transmutation accurately, a reconstruction method is proposed. The method reconstructs the pin-by-pin neutron spectrum by combining results of the assembly calculation and the core calculation. The reference Monte Carlo calculation is carried out for verification of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method provides an accurate pin-by-pin neutron spectrum and an accurate amount of the pin-by-pin minor actinides transmutation compared with conventional assembly-wise evaluation.

Keywords: fast reactor; minor actinide; Zr-H; neutron spectrum; transmutation; pin-by-pin; reconstruction; method of characteristics; Monte Carlo.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNEST.2017.090657

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, 2017 Vol.11 No.4, pp.329 - 344

Received: 16 Sep 2017
Accepted: 26 Jan 2018

Published online: 25 Mar 2018 *

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