Power reactivity decrement components of a homogeneous UPu10Zr-fueled 900-MW(thermal) liquid metal reactor

Linear and Doppler feedback components of the power reactivity decrement (PRD) for a 900-MW(thermal) homogeneous UPu10Zr-fueled sodium-cooled reactor have been calculated. (The PRD is the negative of the reactivity required to bring the reactor from a zero-power hot-critical condition to a given power level.) The components are further separated into power-dependent and power-to-flow-dependent parts. These delineations enhance understanding of the contributions of the components to the feedback process. The delineation also enables the PRDs for other values of coolant flows to be estimated. The linear and Doppler components of the PRD are obtained using the EBRPOCO code, which calculates detailed axially delineated contributions of the components for every subassembly of a loading configuration. Separation of the components into power and power-to-flow parts is made by calculations of the components, assuming infinite thermal conductivities to obtain the power-to-flow values. Subtractions of these from the corresponding PRD quantities give the power-dependent parts. The values of the various feedback components are compared with corresponding quantities reported for an analogous U10Zr-fueled case.