Reducing Irradiation Damage in a Long-Life Fast Reactor with Spectral Softening

Andrew G. Osborne and Mark R. Deinert
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Andrew G. Osborne: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Mark R. Deinert: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: Long-life fast reactors receive considerable attention for their potential of using uranium efficiently, and because they can operate for extended periods without refueling. However, the main obstacle to achieving maximum operating times and fuel burnup is the neutron radiation damage that accumulates in the cladding and structural materials. Simulations of metal-fueled high-burnup fast reactors showed that the damage in these reactors’ cladding material reached 200 displacements per atom (dpa) long before the maximum burnup was achieved. One possibility for overcoming this problem is spectral softening, which would reduce the kinetic energy imparted to reactor materials when neutrons collide with them. In this work, we compared the peak irradiation damage in metal- and oxide-fueled fast reactors with that in equivalent reactors containing beryllium in the fuel and reflectors. We showed that the peak damage to the cladding in a metal-fueled reactor was reduced from 273 dpa to 230 dpa when beryllium was included in the core. In an oxide-fueled reactor, the peak damage to the cladding was reduced from 225 dpa to 203 dpa. All four reactors were operated with a core-average burnup of 112 MWd/kg of initial heavy metal (IHM), without reshuffling or refueling, and contained the same initial actinide mass profiles.

Keywords: fast reactor; long-life; irradiation damage; displacements per atom (dpa) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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