A Compact Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor with an Ultra-Long Fuel Cycle - 2012

Nuclear Power Industry

Choi and two co-authros reported in 2012 that In an attempt to allow nuclear power to reach its full economic potential, General Atomics is developing the Energy Multiplier Module (EM²), which is a compact gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR).The EM² augments its issile fuel load with fertile materials to enhance an ultra-long fuel cycle based on a “convert-and-burn” core design which converts fertile material to issile fuel and burns it in situ over a 30-year core life without fuel supplementation or shuling.

A series of reactor physics trade studies were conducted and a baseline core was developed under the speciic physics design requirements of the long-life small reactor.

The EM² core performance was assessed for operation time, fuel burnup, excess reactivity, peak power density, uranium utilization, etc., and it was conirmed that an ultra-long fuel cycle core is feasible if the conversion is enough to produce issile material and maintain criticality, the amount of matrix material is minimized not to soten the neutron spectrum, and the reactor core size is optimized to minimize the neutron loss. his study has shown the feasibility, from the reactor physics standpoint, of a compact GFR that can meet the objectives of ultra-long fuel cycle, factory-fabrication, and excellent fuel utilization.