Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Geometrical shape and self-shielding effect of burnable poison particles on pin-in block type HTGR neutronic performance

  • Received : 2023.12.27
  • Accepted : 2024.01.30
  • Published : 2024.06.25
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Abstract

In our previous works, two different spherical burnable poison particles (BPPs) as B4C and Gd2O3 in pin-in block type HTGR core had utilized to suppress the excess reactivity and to control long-term reactivity during the burnup period. In the present work, we performed the neutronic analysis of a prismatic HTGR operating at 850 ℃ with thermal power of 100 MW containing spherical and cylindrical BPPs and then studied the self-shielding effect of BPPs and shape effect. The calculations were performed when the surface area (1) or volume (2) of cylindrical BPPs equals to that of the spherical BPPs. The calculations showed that the neutronic parameters were slightly better for the second case than the first one, such as the excess reactivity of the reactor core at the beginning of the cycle were more suppressed, the core lifetime were more extended, and the fuel-burning were more efficiently. The neutron spectrum in each region of the cylindrical BBPs slightly differs than that of the spherical BPPs. Therefore, the self-shielding effect of BPPs on reactor core performance depends on the particle's geometrical shape.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National University of Mongolia under grant number P2023-4611. We appreciate the MINATO cluster server computers at the Nuclear Research Center, National University of Mongolia for giving opportunity to perform all neutronic calculations.

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