Subcritical dimensions for design study of future reprocessing facility

Suto, Toshiyuki ; Fukushima, Manabu*

Future reprocessing facilities are considered to treat not only LWR uranium fuels but also LWR-MOX fuels and even FBR fuels. These spent fuels have various enrichments, isotopic compositions of plutonium. In order to make reasonable design and management of criticality safety for such multi-fuel reprocessing facilities, there needs to be critiricality safety data with a multiple of enrichments, isotopic compositions of plutonium. The authors calculated subcritical dimensions of uranium/plutonium mixed nitrate solution with a multiple set of enrichments and isotopic compositions of plutonium for cylinder, slab, and annular geometries and arranged the results in tables and graphs which are usable for the criticality safe design study of future reprocessing facilities. In addition, some findings useful for selecting criticality safety control methods were summarized.