Actinide Minor Addition on Uranium Plutonium Nitride Fuel for Modular Gas Cooled Fast Reactor

Abstract

This study has made a calculation of Actinide Minor Addition on Uranium Plutonium Nitride Fuel for Modular Gas Cooled Fast Reactor. The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics of minor actinides when incorporated into plutonium nitride uranium fuel. Neutronics calculation was design by using SRAC Code version 2006 (Standard Reactor Analysis Code) with the data nuclides from JENDL-4.0 under the Linux Operating System with nuclear data library JENDL4.0. Neutronic calculations were done through some steps of parameter survey to obtain the ultimate optimization results. The initial calculation was calculation of fuel cell (PIJ calculation) by using hexagonal cell and then followed by calculation of core reactor (CITATION calculation) by using program code SRAC2006. The addition of minor actinide has been calculated in this research. The minor actinides which were added were americium (Am-241 and Am-243) and neptunium 237. They were put into the uranium plutonium nitride material to decrease the k-eff value. The addition of minor actinide into the reactor aimed to reduce the number of minor actinides in the world. Minor actinide is a nuclear waste fuel or often called spent nuclear fuel (SNF) which has high toxicity. Neptunium 237 is a minor actinide with the highest percentage of SNF.