Effect of mixing condition of MOX powder and additives on criticality safety

Yamamoto, Toshihiro; Miyoshi, Yoshinori

MOX powder and additives are mixed in the process of MOX fuel fabrication. A non-uniform mixing state of MOX powder and additives occurs during the homogenization mixing process. However, ordinary criticalit safety evaluations for mixtures assume that the mixtures have a uniform distribution of the mixing state. A non-uniform distribution of the mixing state in a sphere, which maximizes the effective neutron multiplication factor, was obtained using a concept of the fuel importance. As a result, the central portion of the sphere is composed of an optimal moderation region, and the surrounding region is composed of pure MOX powder. While keff is 0.545 for the uniform distribution, keff for the optimal non-uniform distribution is 0.590. That is, keff increases by 0.045.