OPTIMISATION STUDIES OF ACCELERATOR DRIVEN FERTILE TO FISSILE CONVERSION RATES IN THORIUM FUEL CYCLE

The need for proliferation-resistance, longer fuel cycles, higher burn up and improvedwaste form characteristics has led to a renewed worldwide interest in thorium-based fuels and fuel cycles. In this paper the GEANT4 Monte Carlo code has been used to simulate the Thorium-Uranium fuel cycle. The accelerator driven fertile to fissile conversion rates have been calculated for various geometries. Several new classes have been added by the authors to the GEANT4 simulation code, an extension which allows the state-of-the-art code to be used for