Neutronics analysis of UN-PuN fuel for 300MW pressurized water reactor using SRAC-COREBN code

Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) is one of alternative energy that can be used to replace fossil energy. NPP is a clean energy that doesn’t emit CO₂ as a residue from the power plant. Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) is the most widely used commercial reactor to date. This reactor usually uses UO₂ as fuel with enrich U-235 and produce plutonium as a waste nuclear. In this study, the fuel uses natural uranium and the addition of plutonium from the spent fuel of PWR, calling it Uranium-Plutonium Nitride (UN-PuN) fuel. Plutonium from spent fuel PWR (U-fueled) consists of Pu-238, Pu-239, Pu-240, Pu-241 and Pu-242, which Pu-239 and Pu-241 are fissile material. The aim of using plutonium is to reduce the amount of nuclear waste and prevent the use of plutonium as a nuclear weapon. The addition of neptunium and protactinium is also carried out in the fuel. Neptunium is one of the minor actinide materials which have high toxicity, so add Np-237 it is very useful to reduce the amount of neptunium in the world. And also, the addition of Np-237 and Pa-231 aims to decrease the k_eff value both in the Beginning of Life (BOL) and End of Life (EOL) in the reactor. This research calculates the neutronic calculations for PWR use SRAC2006 with COREBN Code and Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library 4.0 (JENDL-4.0) for the nuclear data library. The COREBN code is a calculation method based on interpolation of macroscopic cross-section and finite-difference diffusion theory. The optimum design reached the maximum k-eff value 1.017077 and the maximum power density was 58.47 W/cc. The results obtained are the excess reactivity value of 1.68 % smaller than previous study which produces an excess reactivity value of 11.94 %. So this design has the potential to be applied in the PWR design