Analysis of Advanced Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor Core Designs with Improved Safety Characteristics

In order to meet the steadily increasing worldwide energy demand, nuclear power is expected to continue playing a key role in electricity production. Currently, the large majority of nuclear power plants are operated with thermal-neutron spectra and need regular fuel loading of enriched uranium. According to the identified conventional uranium resources and their current consumption rate, only about 100 years' nuclear fuel supply is foreseen. A reactor operated with a fast-neutron spectrum, on the other hand, can induce self-sustaining, or even breeding, conditions for its inventory of fissile material, which effectively allow it – after the initial loading – to be refueled using simply natural or depleted uranium. This implies a much more efficient use of uranium resources. Moreover, minor actinides become fissionable in a fast-neutron spectrum, enabling full closure of the fuel cycle and leading to a minimization of long-lived radioactive wastes. The sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is one of the most promising candidates to meet the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) declared goals. In comparison to other Generation IV systems, there is considerable design experience related to the SFR, and also more than 300 reactor-years of practical operation. As a fast-neutron-spectrum system, the long-term operation of an SFR core in a closed fuel cycle will lead to an equilibrium state, where both reactivity and fuel mass flow stabilize. Although the SFR has many advantageous characteristics, it has one dominating neutronics drawback, viz. there is generally a positive reactivity effect when sodium coolant is removed from the core. Furthermore, this so-called sodium void effect becomes even stronger in the equilibrium closed fuel cycle. The goal of the present doctoral research is to improve the safety characteristics of advanced SFR core designs, in particular, from the viewpoint of the positive sodium void reactivity effect. In this context, particular importance has been given to the dynamic core behavior under a hypothetical unprotected loss-of-flow (ULOF) accident scenario, in which sodium boiling occurs. The proposed improvements address both neutronics and thermal-hydraulics aspects. Furthermore, emphasis has been placed on not only the beginning-of-life (BOL) state of the core, but also on the beginning of closed equilibrium fuel cycle (BEC) state. An important context for the current thesis is the 7th European Framework Program's Collaborative Project for a European Sodium Fast Reactor (CP-ESFR), the reference 3600 MWth ESFR core being the starting point for the conducted research. The principally employed computational tools belong to the so-called FAST code system, viz. the fast-reactor neutronics code ERANOS, the fuel cycle simulating procedure EQL3D, the spatial kinetics code PARCS and the system thermal-hydraulics code TRACE. The research has been carried out in essentially three successive phases. The first phase has involved achievin