Gas cooled fast reactor for Generation IV service

Pavel Hejzlar, Michael J. Pope, Wesley C. Williams, Michael J. Driscoll

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Gas Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR), which is among the Generation IV concepts under evaluation for future deployment, will have to satisfy the Gen IV goals in the area of sustainability, safety and economy. This paper discusses challenges posed by the GFR when striving for the achievement of balance among the above Generation IV goals, and the pros and cons of various design choices. Considering these goals, the currently preferred design direction at MIT is a GFR design using a direct supercritical CO2 cycle, traditional containment with design pressure of 5 bars, employment of redundant active emergency cooling systems with highly reliable and diverse power supplies, which can also function in the passive mode as a backup at 5 bars containment pressure, and TRU fueled cores using either block-type (TRU-U)C fuel or pin type (TRU-U)C fuel with double cladding or (TRU-U)O2 fuel vibropacked in a tube-in-duct assembly.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)271-282
Number of pages12
JournalProgress in Nuclear Energy
Volume47
Issue number1-4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2005
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Support from the INEEL Laboratory Directed Research and Development program on Innovative Gas Cooled Reactor, I-NERI project "Development of GEN IV Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors with Hardened/Fast Neutron Spectrum" and GEN IV funding via Sandia National Laboratory on Qualification of the Supercritical CO2 Power Conversion Cycle for Advanced Reactor Applications is gratefully acknowledged.

Keywords

  • Coolant void reactivity
  • Decay heat removal
  • Gas cooled fast reactor
  • Safety

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