Sonat Sen, et al., report that the United States has the facilities necessary to meet the nation’s need for thermal-neutron irradiations; however, a significant gap exists in the ability to meet the need for fast-neutron irradiations. To ensure the long-term relevance of a new test reactor, the latter should be highly reconfigurable and allow operation
as a fast test reactor, a thermal test reactor, or a coupled fast-thermal test reactor in order to satisfy the needs, present and future, of as many customers as possible. In addition to the possibility of generating high-fast and thermal neutron fluxes, the use of sodium as coolant in conjunction with a solid moderator, such as graphite opens the door for such highly reconfigurable cores.
It is important to understand the previous designs and operations of highly configurable cores and fast reactors in order to make smart design choices. Two important reactor designs from the past are considered in the study described in this report. One is the design of the KNK (Compact Sodium Cooled Nuclear Power Plant) that operated in Germany. The KNK design is a good example of having both thermal and fast-neutron spectrum cores within the same vessel, a configuration that provides versatility. The second is the PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module) fast-neutron-spectrum design by General Electric.
The calculation of displacements per atom for reporting the performance of a test reactor is also provided in this report. The effect of neutron spectrum on the test materials and durations showed the importance of the fast-neutron spectrum for the accelerated material testing. Several options for the design of a versatile coupled test reactor are
considered in the study described in this report. One important finding presented here is that the use of moderator pins in the booster-fuel assemblies of a boosted core
configuration could reduce the amount of fuel needed, while maintaining similar performance. The use of plutonium in the fast zone would provide more flexibility in fuel assembly design than the use of low-enriched uranium. A system-level cost/benefit analysis considering the use of plutonium versus the use of only low-enriched uranium will be necessary in the near future in order to make informed design decisions.
Original working URL: https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sites/sti/sti/7323665.pdf
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