Resolution of Proliferation Issues for a Sodium Fast Reactor Blanket
Breeding blankets are of interest for a sodium fast reactor (SFR) as they allow for small cores to have positive breeding gains. However, because they breed very high-quality plutonium, core designers are not currently encouraged to employ blankets. After verifying that the ERANOS code was in good a...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
American Nuclear Society
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109322 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2919-2312 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1459-7672 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1715-3735 |
| Summary: | Breeding blankets are of interest for a sodium fast reactor (SFR) as they allow for small cores to have positive breeding gains. However, because they breed very high-quality plutonium, core designers are not currently encouraged to employ blankets. After verifying that the ERANOS code was in good agreement with BGcore, a Monte Carlo-based depletion system, it was shown that an SFR blanket design could breed less attractive plutonium than light water reactor (LWR)-bred plutonium for making a nuclear explosive device. Minor actinide (MA) doping and moderator addition were the two options studied. This study shows that it is possible to build an SFR with a secure blanket with MA addition; at steady state MAs from approximately 1.5 LWRs are required per SFR [both rated at 1 GW(electric)]. |
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