Investigation of neutronic and safety parameters variation in 5 MW research reactor due to U3O8Al fuel conversion to ThO2 + U3O8Al

Abstract Thorium-based fuels could comprise several advantages and are being investigated as a potentially competitive option with uranium-based fuels for research or power reactors. The present study investigates computationally the application of two different thorium-based fuels in a research reactor. Void and temperature reactivity coefficients, safety factor, power peaking factor, neutron generation time, effective delayed neutron fraction and 135Xe worth parameter were investigated for the fuel conversions. The results showed both the investigated fuels would not significantly disturb neutronic and safety parameters of the modeled core in comparison with its routine fuel loading. However, 235-enriched thorium based fuel concluded in noticeably reduction of High Level Waste (HLW) but 233-enriched type could be taken in attention because of its longer fuel cycle (∼15 %) and integrated neutron flux (∼23 %).