Basic study on characteristics of some important equilibrium fuel cycles of PWR

Equilibrium fuel cycle characteristics of a light water reactor (LWR) with enriched uranium supply were evaluated. In this study, five kinds of fuel c ycles of 3000 MWt pressurized water reactor (PWR) were investigated, and a method to determine the uranium enrichment in order to achieve their critic ality was presented. The results show that the enrichment decreases conside rably with increasing number of confined heavy nuclides when U is discharge d from the reactor. The required natural uranium was also evaluated for two different enrichment processes. The amount of required natural uranium als o decreases as well. On the other hand, when U is totally confined, the enr ichment becomes unacceptably high. Furthermore, Pu and minor actinides (MA) confining seem effective to incinerate the discharged radio-toxic wastes. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.