THE COMPOSITE FUEL FOR BREST REACTOR (PREPRINT IBRAE-2015-05)

Preprint IBRAE-2015-05

Bolshov L.A., Solodov A.A.

The revue is exposed on operational, technological and cost properties of the novel nuclear fuel for fast power reactor. The fuel element is made as a sandwich structure of thin oxides or nitridepellets and interposed molybdenum spacers. The molybdenum spacers are responsible for the high effective heat conduction constant of the fuel, typically in the range of 25 W/m·K or 40 W/m·K if oxide/nitride pellets are used. The startpoint  of the design is that molybdenum would be enriched in neutron – transparent isotopes ^92,94Mo or ^98,100Mo. The unique property of molybdenum from the viewpoint of recycling of that material is that its specific activity is low after postreactor storing ~ 1 year long, which enables recycling of molybdenum used after relatively short stay.  The estimate is performed on  the isotopes  ^92,94Mo and  ^98,100Mo mixtures cost.

By the virtue of specific structure of composite nitrides fuel as thin nitrides pellets and molybdenum spacers the blocking of pellets fragmentation is achieved. So the general degradation mechanism of fuel rods with nitrides pellets is turned off. The novel composite nitrides fuel should be regarded as reliable and safe candidate fuel for the BREST reactor.   

Bibliographical reference

Bolshov L.A., Solodov A.A. THE COMPOSITE FUEL FOR BREST REACTOR. Preprint № IBRAE-2015-05. Moscow Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBRAE RAN), 2015. – 20 p. – Refs.: 23 items