Development of Reduced-Moderation Water Reactor (RMWR) for sustainable energy supply

持続可能なエネルギー供給のための低減速スペクトル炉(RMWR)の開発

岩村 公道; 大久保 努; 呉田 昌俊   ; 中塚 亨  ; 竹田 練三*; 山本 一彦*

Iwamura, Takamichi; Okubo, Tsutomu; Kureta, Masatoshi; Nakatsuka, Toru; Takeda, Renzo*; Yamamoto, Kazuhiko*

我が国における持続可能なエネルギー供給を確保するため、原研は原電及び日立と共同で低減速スペクトル炉(RMWR)の研究開発を実施した。RMWRは、燃料の有効利用,プルトニウム多重リサイクル,高燃焼度・長期サイクル運転が可能な軽水炉であり、中性子の減速を抑えて転換比を向上させるため、稠密格子MOX燃料集合体を使用している。またボイド反応度係数を負にするため扁平炉心を採用した。1,356MWの大型炉と330MWの小型炉の設計を行った。大型炉心では転換比1.05,燃焼度60GWd/t,運転サイクル24ヶ月の性能が達成できた。7本ロッドの限界熱流束実験を実施し、熱流動的成立性を確認した。

In order to ensure sustainable energy supply in Japan, the reduced-moderation water reactor (RMWR) has been developed by JAERI since 1998. MOX fuel assemblies with tight lattice arrangement are used to increase the conversion ratio. In order to establish negative void reactivity coefficient, the core should be short and flat to increase neutron leakage from the core. The core designs were accomplished to a large core with 1,356MWe and a small core with 330MWe. For both cores, negative void coefficient and natural circulation cooling of the core were realized. To confirm thermal-hydraulic feasibility, critical heat flux experiments were performed using 7-rod bundles with the gap width of 1mm and 1.3mm. The results indicated that enough cooling was assured for the tight lattice core. Further R&D studies, including large scale thermal-hydraulic experiments, reactor physics experiments, development of high burn-up fuel cladding material and simplified reprocessing technology, are necessary to realize commercial introduction of RMWR by 2020's for the replacement of current generation LWRs.