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June 16–19, 2024
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Latest News
Congress receives NRC report on unusual events
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its annual report to Congress for fiscal year 2023 on abnormal occurrences involving medical and industrial uses of radioactive material.
The report, which was announced by the NRC on May 3, is available on the NRC website.
Eric P. Loewen, Rodrick D. Wilson, Judith K. Hohorst, Arvind S. Kumar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 136 | Number 3 | December 2001 | Pages 261-277
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3244
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent investigations into the performance and economics of mixed thoria-urania (ThO2/UO2) fuel cycles in light water reactors indicate that there may be advantages to using these fuels at high burnups. The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) modified FRAPCON-3, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission-sponsored software package developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for use on mixed thoria-urania fuels. The modifications constituted the first stage of fuel performance evaluations supported by the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) project titled Advanced Proliferation Resistant, Lower Cost, Uranium-Thorium Dioxide Fuels for Light Water Reactors. The goal of this NERI project is to develop mixed ThO2/UO2 fuels that can be operated to a relatively high burnup level in current and future commercial power reactors.This paper describes in detail the INEEL's modifications to the FRAPCON-3 thermal conductivity subroutine FTHCON and the techniques used to validate the modifications. The paper presents the general fuel design criteria used to model mixed thoria-urania fuel and a steady-state analysis of a mock thoria-urania fuel using the FRAPCON-3Th code. The paper also presents the data analyses for the mock thoria-urania fuel and offers suggestions for future upgrades and improvements to the code.