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Performance analysis of an advanced polymeric burnable poison for PWR fuel assembly

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Abstract

To increase the cycle burnup of a PWR fuel assembly, different burnable poisons (BPs) are evaluated. A new innovative neutron absorber based on polymer composition is proposed. Assembly level fuel burnup calculations are performed up to 60 GWd/MTU of heavy metal. The effect of the replacement of CrB2Al BP by polycarborane-siloxane-ethynyl (PACS) polymer in the WWER-1000 nuclear reactor is analyzed. The main neutronic parameters including burnup reactivity, maximum pin power variation versus burnup, pin power distribution, cycle length, and reactivity swing are calculated. In addition, the primary safety parameters, including fuel and moderator temperature coefficients, are evaluated to check the effectiveness of the new proposed BP. The results were promising. The highest cycle length, 18.267 GWd/MTU is obtained by the proposed PACS BP. The suggested polymeric BP also favors the lowest reactivity swing, 3365 pcm, while no considerable increase in pin power peaking is observed. It is also shown that the fuel assembly with PACS case provides maximum pin power peaking of 1.111 (~ 3% higher than the unpoisoned case) at beginning of cycle (BOC) and 1.097 (~ 0.4% lower than the unpoisoned case) at EOC, respectively. Furthermore, the fuel temperature coefficient, FTC, and the moderator temperature coefficient, MTC, of the PACS BP result in more negative values and thus can provide better behavior (controllability) during accidents.

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Data availability

This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors’ comment: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.]. However, To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper and references herein contain all the data needed to reproduce and validate the results presented.

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  1. Reactor and Nuclear Safety Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute (NSTRI), Tehran, Iran

    Farrokh Khoshahval

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Khoshahval, F. Performance analysis of an advanced polymeric burnable poison for PWR fuel assembly. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 139, 73 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-04856-2

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