Optimization of hydride fueled pressurized water reactor cores

This thesis contributes to the Hydride Fuels Project, a collaborative effort between UC Berkeley and MIT aimed at investigating the potential benefits of hydride fuel use in light water reactors (LWRs). This pursuit involves implementing an appropriate methodology for design and optimization of hydride and oxide fueled cores. Core design is accomplished for a range of geometries via steady-state and transient thermal hydraulic analyses, which yield the maximum power, and fuel performance and neutronics studies, which provide the achievable discharge burnup. The final optimization integrates the outputs from these separate studies into an economics model to identify geometries offering the lowest cost of electricity, and provide a fair basis for comparing the performance of hydride and oxide fuels. Considerable work has already been accomplished on the project; this thesis builds on this previous work. More specifically, it focuses on the steady-state thermal hydraulic and economic analyses for pressurized water reactor (PWR) cores utilizing UZrH₁.₆ and UO₂. A previous MIT study established the steady-state thermal hydraulic design methodology for determining maximum power from square array PWR core designs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Shuffler, Carter Alexander

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neil E. Todreas.

• Nuclear Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33634

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33634