A design study on a metal fuel fast reactor core for high efficiency minor actinide transmutation by loading silicon carbide composite material

A metal fuel fast reactor core for high efficiency minor actinide (MA) transmutation was designed by loading silicon carbide composite material (SiC/SiC) which can improve sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) core safety characteristics such as sodium void reactivity worth and Doppler coefficient due to neutron moderation. Based on a 750 MWe metal fueled SFR core concept designed in a prior work, the reactor core loading fuel subassemblies with SiC/SiC wrapper tubes and moderator subassemblies was designed. To improve the reactor core safety characteristics efficiently, three layers of SiC/SiC moderator subassemblies were loaded in the core by replacing 108 out of 393 fuel subassemblies with the moderators. The reactor core with approximately 20 wt% MA-containing metal fuel satisfied all safety design criteria and achieved the MA transmutation amount as high as 420 kg/GWe-y which is twice as high as that of the axially heterogeneous core with inner blanket and upper sodium plenum, and two-thirds of that of the accelerator-driven system.