Core depletion analysis of long-life CANDLE gas-cooled fast reactor using OpenMC code

Abstract

A long-life CANDLE burn up strategy has been performed to determine the start-up core design and power flattening of core configuration for 600 MWt rating. The initial core of fuel composition is applied with a minimum amount of plutonium from the depleted uranium as booster fuel region to keep a continuous operation for several decades. In this work, long life small CANDLE gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) will be investigated from neutron behavior interaction using OpenMC code. The OpenMC code is an open-source Monte Carlo particle transport code that enabling full-scale and high- fidelity geometry modeling of nuclear reactors and other systems. Our analysis uses nuclear data of Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF/B-VII.b5) and continuous-energy cross-section. The physics parameters are characterized, including the effective multiplication factor, flux distribution, fission reaction rate distribution, and power fraction distribution. The initial CANDLE core keeps successfully in critical condition with slight fluctuation of the multiplication factor. Finally, we got the result that the CANDLE-GFR using the depleted uranium to achieve the equilibrium core is promising.