Preliminary Research and Design in the Nuclear Island Systems of 1500MWt Standing-Wave Reactor

As one kind of fast reactor, the Traveling-Wave Reactor (TWR) utilizes depleted uranium with a small amount of enriched uranium/ plutonium which is used to kick off the chain reaction. The TWR can run for decades without refueling or removing any used fuel from the reactor. The most challenging issues on TWR are fuel design, structural material for fuel cladding, core physics process analysis and core physics design. Based on the present technology of fuel and structural material, a new concept named Standing-Wave Reactor (SWR) which is the preliminary stage of the TWR is proposed. The wave of fission would move through the depleted uranium core by fuel transfer in SWR. According to the concept of SWR and the published data of fuel and material, the R&D works on 1500MWt SWR have been performed, which cover the reactor core, reactor structure, process system et.al. The preliminary results confirm the feasibility of SWR. Meanwhile, the design of reactor core and the main systems which is based on the technologies of available pool sodium-cooled fast reactor has been accomplished.Copyright © 2013 by ASME