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A Super Fast Reactor is a pressure-vessel type, fast spectrum SuperCritical Water Reactor (SCWR) which is presently researched in a Japanese project. A preliminary core has an average power density of 158.8 W/cc. However one of the most important advantages of the Super Fast Reactor is the higher power density compared to the thermal spectrum SCWR, which reduces the capital cost. After the sensitivity analyses on the fuel rod configurations, the fuel assembly configurations and the core configurations, an improved core with an average power density of 294.8 W/cc is designed by 3-D neutronic/thermal-hydraulic coupled calculations. In order to ensure the fuel rod integrity of new core design with high power density, the fuel rod behaviors under normal operating condition are analyzed using fuel performance code FEMAXI-6. The power histories of each fuel rod are taken from the neutronics calculation results in the core design. The cladding surface temperature histories are generated from the thermal-hydraulic calculation results in the core design. Four types of the limiting fuel rods, individually with the Maximum Cladding Surface Temperature (MCST), Maximum Power Peak (MPP), Maximum Discharge Burnup (MDB) and Different Coolant Flow Pattern (DCFP), are chosen to cover all the fuel rods in the core. The available design range of the fuel rod design parameters, such as initial gas plenum pressure, gas plenum position, gas plenum length, grain size and gap size, are found out in order to satisfy the following design criteria: (1) Maximum fuel centerline temperature should be less than 1900 °C. (2) Maximum cladding stress in circumferential direction should be less than 100 MPa. (3) Pressure difference on the cladding should be less than 1/3 of buckling collapse pressure. (4) Cumulative damage faction (CDF) of the cladding should be less than 1.0. Unfortunately some criteria could not be satisfied, such as the maximum fuel centerline temperature and maximum cladding stress. Therefore the influence of average linear heat generation rate, Pu enrichment and compressive stress to yield strength ratio are analyzed. Finally the improved fuel rod design of the new core is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The performance of the super-critical water-cooled fast reactor (Super FR) for the transmutation treatment of long-lived fission products (LLFPs) was evaluated. Two regions with the soft neutron spectrum, which is of great benefit to the LLFPs transmutation, can be utilized in the Super FR. First region is in the blanket assembly due to the ZrH1.7 layer which was utilized to slow down the fast neutrons to achieve a negative void reactivity. Second region is in the reflector region of core like other metal-cooled fast reactors. The LLFPs selected in the transmutation analysis include 99Tc, 129I and 135Cs discharged from LWR or fast reactor. Their isotopes, such as 127I, 133Cs, 134Cs and 137Cs were also considered to avoid the separation. By loading the isotopes (99Tc or 127I and 129I) in the blanket assembly and the reflector region simultaneously, the transmutation rates of 5.36%/GWeyear and 2.79%/GWeyear can be obtained for 99Tc and 129I, respectively. The transmuted amounts of 99Tc and 129I are equal to the yields from 11.8 and 6.2 1000MWe-class PWRs. Because of the very low capture cross section of 135Cs and the effect of other cesium isotopes, 135Cs was loaded with three rings of assemblies in the reflector region to make the transmuted amount be larger than the yields of two 1000MWe-class PWRs. Based on these results, 99Tc and 129I can be transmuted conveniently and higher transmutation performance can be obtained in the Super FR. However, the transmutation of 135Cs is very difficult and the transmuted amount is less than that produced by the Super FR. It turns out that the transmutation of 135Cs is a challenge not only for the Super FR but also for other commercial fast reactors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A Super Fast Reactor is a pressure-vessel type, fast spectrum supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR) that is presently researched in a Japanese project. A preliminary core has been designed with 1.59E+06W/m3 of power density [1]. In order to ensure the fuel rod integrity, the fuel rod behaviors under the normal operating conditions are analyzed using FEMAXI-6 code. Three types of the limiting fuel rods, with the maximum cladding surface temperature (MCST), maximum power peak (MPP) and maximum discharge burnup (MDB), are chosen to cover all the fuel rods in the core. The power histories of these fuel rods are taken from the neutronics calculation results in the core design. The available design range of the fuel rod design parameters, such as the initial gas plenum pressure, gas plenum length, grain size and pellet-cladding gap size, are found out in order to satisfy the following design criteria: (1) Maximum fuel centerline temperature should be less than 1900°C. (2) Maximum cladding stress in circumstance direction should be less than 100MPa. (3) Pressure difference on the cladding should be less than 1/3 of buckling collapse pressure. (4) Compressive stress to yield strength ratio should be less than 0.2. (5) Cumulative damage fraction (CDF) on the cladding should be less than 1.0. Finally the improved fuel rod design is proposed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Keeping negative void reactivity throughout the cycle life is one of the most important requirements for the design of a supercritical water-cooled fast reactor (super fast reactor). Previous conceptual design has negative overall void reactivity. But the local void reactivity, which is defined as the reactivity change when the coolant of one fuel assembly disappears, also needs to be kept negative throughout the cycle life because the super fast reactor is designed with closed fuel assemblies. The mechanism of the local void reactivity is theoretically analyzed from the neutrons balance point of view. Three-dimensional neutronics/thermal-hydraulic coupling calculation is employed to analyze the characteristics of the super fast reactor including the local void reactivity. Some configurations of the core are optimized to decrease the local void reactivity. A reference core is successfully designed with keeping both overall and local void reactivity negative. The maximum local void reactivity is less than −30pcm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]