Criticality analysis of pulse core and laser module coupled small reactor with low enriched uranium
✍ Scribed by Hiroki Takezawa; Toru Obara; Andrey Gulevich; Oleg Kukharchuk
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 512 KB
- Volume
- 50
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0149-1970
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✦ Synopsis
Nuclear-pumped laser can directly convert nuclear energy to optical energy. A coupled reactor which consists of two pulse cores with highly enriched metallic uranium and a subcritical thermal laser module with highly enriched metallic uranium is one of the reactors for nuclearpumped laser. In this paper, criticality analysis of a coupled reactor which consists of pulse cores with 20% enriched metallic uranium and a subcritical thermal laser module with 20% enriched metallic uranium was performed by Monte Carlo calculation. The result of criticality analysis showed the following three points. First, a coupled reactor with 20% enriched metallic uranium can achieve criticality. Second, using eight pulse cores in axial direction is effective to achieve flattened axial power distribution in the laser module. Third, less than 20% of the energy released from fissions in the whole coupled reactor has the possibility to be converted to optical energy for a coupled reactor with 100% enriched uranium, and less than 7% for a coupled reactor with 20% enriched uranium.