Many technical hurdles remain to be overcome before an advanced fuel cycle in
which minor actinides from spent nuclear fuel are used to generate power. Three such
issues were addressed: criticality safety of minor actinides as compared to currently used
fissile isotopes; accuracy of evaluated nuclear data for selected minor actinide high
energy fission cross-sections; and the preliminary design optimization of a minor actinide
burning/breeding fission blanket in a fission fusion hybrid reactor concept. For minor
actinide compositions found in spent fuel, current safety measures for actinide solutions
were found to be adequate, though concerns may remain for unmoderated transuranic
materials. Additionally, computational results indicated a 5-10% error in the fission
cross-section of some minor actinides above the fast fission threshold. Finally, a
relatively tall annular fission blanket was found to be the most ideal configuration for the
UT fission- fusion hybrid reactor concept, satisfying criticality and power output criteria. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-622 |
| Date | 05 August 2010 |
| Creators | Van der Hoeven, Christopher Ainslie |
| Contributors | Schneider, Erich A. |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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