Fast Reactors and Accelerator Driven Systems Knowledge Base

Conference Article: Control of accelerator driven subcritical systems fuelled by actinides

Abstract

The OECD/NEA and the CEC have been carrying out studies of new transmutation strategies in an international network. It has been shown that an integration of transmutation techniques could reduce substantially the long-term radiation hazard from nuclear wastes. Transmutation could also contribute to a safe and even beneficial de-commissioning of nuclear weapons. An additional benefit of this more economic use of fuel could be a reduction of radiation hazards from uranium mining. In the search for transmutation concepts accelerator driven sub-critical actinide and isotope incinerators have attracted a great deal of attention especially in Japan and the US. One reason is the fact that actinide fuelled (critical) reactors pose a particular problem of control they are characterized by a small delayed neutron fraction coupled with a non-negative Doppler coefficient. In this context a new formula relating the accelerator energy requirements with the amount of fission product transmutation and the multiplication factor of the system was developed. Also one point kinetic studies dealing with fast transients as a function of reactivity insertion in accelerator driven systems were carried out. They show that such boosters behave quite benignly even if they are only slightly subcritical.

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Reference:

Safety and environmental aspects of partitioning and transmutation of actinides and fission products. Proceedings of a technical committee meeting, Vienna, 29 November - 2 December 1993

International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)

IAEA-TECDOC--783, pp:209-217