Design study on fuel and reactor core for plutonium burner high temperature gas-cooled reactor

Goto, Minoru  ; Inaba, Yoshitomo  ; Fukaya, Yuji   ; Ueta, Shohei   ; Aihara, Jun ; Tachibana, Yukio ; Kunitomi, Kazuhiko 

A concept of a plutonium burner HTGR (High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor) with a high nuclear proliferation resistance has been proposed by Japan Atomic Energy Agency. In addition to the high nuclear proliferation resistance, in order to attain the high burn-up, we propose to introduce a PuO-YSZ (Yttria Stabilized Zirconia) fuel kernel with ZrC coating to the plutonium burner HTGR. In this study, we conduct design of the coated fuel particle and of the reactor core to confirm the feasibility of the plutonium burner HTGR. This study was started in FY2014 and will be completed in FY2017, and the implementation is on schedule. This paper describes the implementation of the first and the second year.