Minor Actinides Incineration by Loading Moderated Targets in Fast Reactor

The effect of hydrogen concentration and loaded mass of minor actinides (MAs) in the target on the core performance and MAs transmutation rate was analyzed in this paper. An optimum core was proposed which has 96 MAs target assemblies of which MAs fuel pins per assembly is 38 with the composition ratio U/MA/Zr/H of 1/4/10/50. This optimized core offers good core performance and can transmute MAs very effectively, the transmutation rate was about 67% (939kg) and the incinerate (transmute by fission) rate was about 35% (489kg) through 3 years of reactor operation. It is about 2-3 times larger than current transmutation method that MAs are loaded homogeneously in the PWR and fast reactor core.