Study on erbium loading method to improve reactivity coefficients for low radiotoxic spent fuel HTGR

Fukaya, Yuji   ; Goto, Minoru  ; Nishihara, Tetsuo 

The investigation on the erbium loading method to improve reactivity coefficients for Low Radiotoxic Spent Fuel High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (LRSF-HTGR) is performed. The fuel employs HEU to reduce toxicity generation from uranium-238. The reactivity coefficients show positive values without any additive. Then, the erbium is loaded in the core to obtain negative reactivity coefficient due to the large resonance peak of neutron capture reaction of erbium-167. The loading methods are investigated. The erbium is mixed into fuel kernel of CPF, loaded by binary packing with fuel particle and erbium particle, and embedded into the graphite shaft deployed center of fuel compact. It is found that the erbium loading causes negative reactivity as a moderator temperature reactivity, and it should be loaded into fuel pin elements for pin-in-block type fuel from the viewpoint of heat transfer. Moreover, the erbium should be incinerated slowly to obtain negative reactivity coefficient even at EOC. The loading method which effectively causes self-shielding should be selected to avoid to be incinerated with burn-up. The mechanism is elucidated by application of Bondarenko approach. As a result, it is conclude that the erbium embedded into graphite shaft is preferable for LRSF-HTGR to remain the reactivity coefficient negative at EOC.