Effects of cooling interval time in melt and refining process for CANDLE burning

The effects of cooling during the melt and refining process in a CANDLE burring reactor was investigated. The introduction of cooling time during the melt and refining process had an impact on the CANDLE burning. A cooling time of one, two, four and eight years were simulated at each melt and refining cycle. The effects of cooling on excess reactivity varied with the cooling time. A longer cooling time may reduce the excess reactivity of a CANDLE burning reactor in the equilibrium condition to negative. In this case, the core design of the CANDLE might need to be optimized to compensate for the decrease of excess reactivity due to the accumulation of Am-241 during the cooling period.