Energy multiplication and fissile fuel breeding limits of accelerator-driven systems with uranium and thorium targets
Date
2015-01-25
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Abstract
The study analyses the integral 233U and 239Pu breeding rates, neutron multiplication ratio
through (n,xn)- and fission-reactions, heat release, energy multiplication and consequently
the energy gain factor in infinite size thorium and uranium as breeder material in an
accelerator driven systems (ADS), irradiated by a 1-GeV proton source. Energy gain factor
has been calculated as Menergy ¼ 1.67, 4.03 and 5.45 for thorium, depleted uranium (100%
238U) and natural uranium, respectively, where the infinite criticality values are k∞ ¼ 0.40,
0.752 and 0.816. Fissile fuel material production is calculated as 53 232Th(n,g)
233U, 80.24 and
90.65 238U(n,g)
239Pu atoms per incident proton, respectively.
The neutron spectrum maximum is by ~1 MeV. Lower energy neutrons E < 1 MeV have
major contribution on fissile fuel material breeding (>97.5%), whereas their share on energy
multiplication is negligible (0.2%) for thorium, depleted uranium. Major fission events
occur in the energy interval 1MeV < E < 50 MeV.
Description
Keywords
energy systems engineering