Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Brolly, Á.
• Halász, M.
• Szieberth, M.
• Nagy, L.
• Fehér, S.

Titel

Physical model of the nuclear fuel cycle simulation code SITON

Ist Teil von

• Annals of nuclear energy, 2017-01, Vol.99, p.471-483

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Finding answers to main challenges of nuclear energy, like resource utilisation or waste minimisation, calls for transient fuel cycle modelling. This motivation led to the development of SITON v2.0 a dynamic, discrete facilities/discrete materials and also discrete events fuel cycle simulation code. The physical model of the code includes the most important fuel cycle facilities. Facilities can be connected flexibly; their number is not limited. Material transfer between facilities is tracked by taking into account 52 nuclides. Composition of discharged fuel is determined using burnup tables except for the 2400MW thermal power design of the Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR2400). For the GFR2400 the FITXS method is used, which fits one-group microscopic cross-sections as polynomial functions of the fuel composition. This method is accurate and fast enough to be used in fuel cycle simulations. Operation of the fuel cycle, i.e. material requests and transfers, is described by discrete events. In advance of the simulation reactors and plants formulate their requests as events; triggered requests are tracked. After that, the events are simulated, i.e. the requests are fulfilled and composition of the material flow between facilities is calculated. To demonstrate capabilities of SITON v2.0, a hypothetical transient fuel cycle is presented in which a 4-unit VVER-440 reactor park was replaced by one GFR2400 that recycled its own spent fuel. It is found that the GFR2400 can be started if the cooling time of its spent fuel is 2years. However, if the cooling time is 5years it needs an additional plutonium feed, which can be covered from the spent fuel of a Generation III light water reactor.