Author
H.J. Rütten
Bio: H.J. Rütten is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Plutonium-239 & Thorium fuel cycle. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 23 citations.
Topics: Plutonium-239, Thorium fuel cycle, Burnup, Nuclear fuel, Plutonium-240
Papers
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, an optimization of the fractions of Pu, U and Th contained in the fuel elements has been done on condition that a negative temperature coefficient of the reactivity has to be achieved over the whole range of operating temperature.
25 citations
Cited by
More filters
TL;DR: In this article, an assessment of the potential for Th-based fuel to minimize Pu and minor actinide (MA) production in PWRs was made, and the potential to minimize both Pu and MA production was evaluated.
Abstract: An assessment is made of the potential for Th-based fuel to minimize Pu and minor actinide (MA) production in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Destruction rates and residual amounts of Pu and MA ...
58 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the burning and/or transmutation of minor actinides (MAs) has been investigated for an operation period (OP) of up to 10 years in the FFHR by 75% plant factor (η) under a neutron wall load (P) of 1.5 MW/m2.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the thorium absorption cross sections of the resolved and unresolved resonances were generated using the ZUT-DGL code based on existing resonance data, and the equilibrium core of the modular HTR was calculated and analyzed by means of the code VSOP'94.
26 citations
TL;DR: PEBBED, a reactor physics code specifically designed to solve for the asymptotic burnup state of pebble bed reactors in conjunction with a genetic algorithm to obtain a core with acceptable properties is employed.
Abstract: We present a conceptual design approach for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors using recirculating pebble-bed cores. The design approach employs PEBBED, a reactor physics code specifically designed to solve for and analyze the asymptotic burnup state of pebble-bed reactors, in conjunction with a genetic algorithm to obtain a core that maximizes a fitness value that is a function of user-specified parameters. The uniqueness of the asymptotic core state and the small number of independent parameters that define it suggest that core geometry and fuel cycle can be efficiently optimized toward a specified objective. PEBBED exploits a novel representation of the distribution of pebbles that enables efficient coupling of the burnup and neutron diffusion solvers. With this method, even complex pebble recirculation schemes can be expressed in terms of a few parameters that are amenable to modern optimization techniques. With PEBBED, the user chooses the type and range of core physics parameters that represent the design space. A set of traits, each with acceptable and preferred values expressed by a simple fitness function, is used to evaluate the candidate reactor cores. The stochastic search algorithm automatically drives the generation of core parameters toward the optimal core as defined by the user. The optimizedmore » design can then be modeled and analyzed in greater detail using higher resolution and more computationally demanding tools to confirm the desired characteristics. For this study, the design of pebble-bed high temperature reactor concepts subjected to demanding physical constraints demonstrated the efficacy of the PEBBED algorithm.« less
25 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the time evolution of criticality and burnup grades of the PBMR were investigated for reactor grade plutonium and minor actinides in the spent fuel of light water reactors (LWRs) mixed with thoria.
23 citations