Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2000 International RERTR Meeting
A
NEUTRONIC FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR LEU CONVERSION
OF
THE SAFARI-1 REACTOR
R. B. Pond, N. A.
Hanan and J. E. Matos
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois,
USA
G. Ball
NECSA
Pretoria, South
Africa
ABSTRACT
A neutronic feasibility study to convert the SAFARI-1 reactor from HEU to LEU fuel was performed at Argonne National Laboratory in cooperation with NECSA. Comparisons were made of the reactor performance with the current 90% enriched HEU fuel type (UAl) and two 19.75% enriched LEU fuel types (U3Si2 and U7Mo).The thermal fluxes with the LEU fuels were 3 - 9% lower than with the current HEU fuel. For the same fuel assembly design, a uranium density of approximately 4.5 g/cm3 was required with U3Si2-Al fuel and a uranium density of about 4.6 g/cm3 was required with U7Mo-Al fuel to match the 24.6-day cycle of the UAl-alloy fuel with 0.92 gU/cm3. The selection of a suitable LEU fuel and the decision to convert SAFARI-1 will be an economic matter that depends upon the fuel type, fuel assembly design, experiment performance and fuel cycle costs.
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Contact:
Dr. Raymond B. Pond
Physicist
Technology Development - 362
Argonne
National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439 USA
Phone: (630) 252-7090
Fax: (630) 252-5161
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