Fast Reactors and Accelerator Driven Systems Knowledge Base

Conference Article: Thorium fuel cycle concept for KAERI's accelerator driven system project

Abstract

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been carrying out accelerator driven system related research and development called HYPER for transmutation and energy production. HYPER program is aiming to develop the elemental technologies for the subcritical system by 2001 and build a small bench scale test facility (approx5MW(th)) by the year 2006. Some major features of HYPER have been developed and employed, which are on-power fueling concepts, a hollow cylinder-type metal fuel, and Pb-Bi as a coolant and spallation target material. Another fuel cycle concept for HYPER has been also studied to utilize thorium as a molten salt form to produce electricity as well as to transmute TRU elements. At the early stage of the fuel cycle, fissile plutonium isotopes in TRU will be incinerated to produce energy and to breed 233U from thorium. Preliminary calculation showed that periodic removal of fission products and small amount of TRU addition could maintain the criticality without separation of 233Pa. At the end of the fuel cycle, the composition of fissile plutonium isotopes in TRU was significantly reduced from about 60% to 18%, which is not attractive any more for the diversion of plutonium. Thorium molten salt fuel cycle may be one of the alternative fuel cycles for the transmutation of TRU. The TRU remained at the end of fuel cycle can be incinerated in HYPER having fast neutron spectrums.

view the full text of this article (6 pages, format: PDF, size= 365kB)

Reference:

Proceedings of three IAEA meetings held in Vienna in 1997, 1998 and 1999

International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)

IAEA-TECDOC--1319, pp:54-59