Investigation of a gas turbine-modular helium reactor using reactor grade plutonium with 232Th and 238U

• Neutronic performance comparisons were made between different fertile fuels.
• Natural uranium mixture works 30 days longer than thorium.
• More fuel needed in natural uranium mixture.
• Thorium has burnup values higher than natural uranium.
• Slightly more palladium is produced in natural uranium mixture.

Utilization of natural uranium (nat-U) and thorium as fertile fuels has been investigated by in a Gas Turbine – Modular Helium Reactor (GTMHR) using reactor grade plutonium as driver fuel. A neutronic analysis for the full core reactor was performed by using MCNP5 with ENDF/B-VI cross-section library. Different mixture ratios were tested in order to find the appropriate mixture ratio of fertile and fissile fuel particles that gives a comparable keff value of the reference uranium fuel. Time dependent calculations were performed by using MONTEBURN2.0 with ORIGEN2.2 for each selected mixture. Different parameters (operation time, burnup value, fissile isotope change, etc.) were subject of performance comparison. The operation time and burnup values were close to each other with nat-U and thorium, namely 3205 days and 176 GWd/MTU for the former and 3175 days 181 GWd/MTU for the latter fertile fuel. In addition, the fissile isotope amount changed from initially 6940.1 kg–4579.2 kg at the end of its operation time for nat-U. These values were obtained for thorium as 6603.3 kg–4250.2 kg, respectively.