Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the 2002 International RERTR Meeting
USING MOLYBDENUM DEPLETED IN 95Mo IN UMo FUEL
K. Bakker, F. Wijtsma
NRG-Petten, P.O.
Box 25, 1755 ZG Petten, The Netherlands.
A. Bos, C. Mol, H. Rakhorst,
Urenco
Nederland B.V., P.O. Box 158,
7600 AD Almelo,
The Netherlands.
M. Bretscher, G. Hofman, J. Snelgrove
Argonne
National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Il 60439-4815.
ABSTRACT
In recent years significant interest was gained in UMo fuel to be used in Material Test Reactors. This
interest was induced by the fact that UMo fuel is mechanically
stable, even at high uranium concentrations and high U-burnup. These properties
are required in order to use Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) and still be able to
achieve high flux and burnup values and, thus, to facilitate the conversion
from High Enriched Uranium (HEU) to LEU.
Neutronics computations have shown that, although the Mo
concentration in UMo fuel is not very high (about 5 -
10w%), the neutron absorption cross sections of natural Mo are sufficiently
high to have a considerable negative impact on the reactivity of this UMo fuel. In the present research the neutron absorption
cross sections of natural Mo are discussed and the option to reduce the cross
section of molybdenum by depleting the Mo in 95Mo is described.
Finally the economic consequences of using Mo depleted in 95Mo are
briefly discussed.