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India’s PFBR attains criticality at last
Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed it “a proud moment for India” when on April 6 the 500-MWe, sodium-cooled Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) achieved initial criticality. This milestone, which comes some 22 years after the continually delayed PFBR project began, marks India’s entrance into the second stage of its three-stage nuclear program, which has the ultimate goal of supporting the country’s nuclear power program with its significant thorium reserves.
Kazuya Ohgama, Atsushi Takegoshi, Hiroki Katagiri, Taira Hazama
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 10 | October 2022 | Pages 1619-1633
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2045532
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju, fuel reactivity worth was measured at six positions as the reactivity corresponding to the differences of critical control rod positions between cores with and without a dummy fuel subassembly. In this paper, the measurements are evaluated in detail, and their reliability and usefulness as validation data for fast reactor neutronics design methodologies are examined through a comparison with calculations. Calculated-to-experiment values and their uncertainty of fuel reactivity worth were 0.97 to 1.02 and 4% to 6%. Through this study, the consistency and reliability of the measurements and calculations were confirmed.