Hitachi, Ltd.

Ryoji Masumi

Motoo Aoyama

Kunitoshi Kurihara

Junichi Koyama

Yoko Ishibashi

Osamu Yokomizo

Takaaki Mochida

Hideo Soneda

Masayoshi Ishida

Katsuyuki Kawashima

Kazuo Azekura

Yooko Ishibashi

A fuel assembly attains high burnup and increases reactor shut-down margin when loaded into a reactor core wherein a water gap width on a control rod side and a water gap width on a side opposite to the control rod side are almost equal to each other. The fuel assembly has a plurality of fuel rods arranged in a square lattice pattern, each fuel rod being filled with nuclear fuel pellets and also has at least one neutron moderator rod shifted toward one corner where a control rod is inserted, away from a cross sectional center of the fuel assembly.

Fuel assembly

The reactor shut-down margin and the thermal margin, as well as the output per unit volume of the core is increased. When A is the total cross sectional area of the non-boiling water areas in the channel boxes each surrounding a fuel assembly and non-boiling water areas outside the channel boxes and B is the cross sectional areas of boiling water areas in the channel boxes, the relation of 1&gt;B/(A+B).gtoreq.0.76 is set. A control unit adjusts a rotational speed of a recirculation internal pump which controls the cooling water flow rate per unit area in the core section to 3.0.times.10.sup.3 t/h/m.sup.2 at the beginning of the operation cycle and controls the cooling water flow rate per the unit area in the core cross section to 3.3.times.10.sup.3 t/h/m.sup.2 at the end of an operation cycle.

Boiling water type thermal neutron reactor and its operating method

A fuel assembly and a reactor core using same which are able to increase size of the fuel assembly with ensuring thermal margin and reactor shut down margin. A distance between centers of adjacent fuel assemblies is about 23 cm, which is enlarged about 1.5 times of conventional fuel assemblies. A thickness of water gap region is about 16 cm, which is relatively thinner than that of prior art. While, H/U ratio is about 5 as same as that of the prior art, and decreasing amount of non-boiling water in the water gap region is arranged in a channel box as water rods. Consequently, a ratio of transversal cross section area of the water rods to transversal cross section area of the fuel rods becomes about 0.6, and local power peaking factor can be decreased and thermal margin can be increased. Further, the transversal cross section area of the water rod is selected to be 15 cm.sup.2 so as to ensure the reactor shut down margin by reducing excess reactivity.

Fuel assembly and reactor core

A fuel assembly comprising a plurality of fuel rods, where fuel rods containing a burnable poison element having a smaller neutron absorption cross-section such as boron are provided in a region of soft neutron energy spectrum and a large thermal neutron flux and fuel rods containing a burnable poison element having a larger neutron absorption cross-section such as gadolinium and fuel rods containing no such burnable poison element are provided in other region of average neutron energy spectrum, has a flat fuel rod power distribution throughout the fuel lifetime even against substantially uniform uranium enrichment distribution with reduced parasitic neutron absorption by gadolia, that is, with higher burnup and reduced fuel cycle cost.

The present invention provides a structural component for constituting a reactor core comprising one and the other metallic members arranged adjacent to each other in a reactor, and reduction means for reducing a difference in the swelling between the metallic members due to neutron irradiation thereto; a core of the reactor comprising a plurality of such constructural element; and a method for operating a reactor having metallic tubular members arranged in a core of the reactor and each enclosing a plurality of metallic cladding tubes in each of which substance heated by neutron irradiation thereto and cooled by passing coolant through the reactor core is filled, wherein the reactor is operated under a condition that an average used temperature of the cladding tubes is higher than an irradiation temperature that the swelling rate of the cladding material due to neutron irradiation thereto becomes maximum and an average used temperature of the tubular members is lower than an irradiation temperature that the swelling rate of the tubular material due to neutron irradiation thereto becomes maximum. According to the structural component and the reactor core, since the difference in the swelling between the metallic members due to neutron irradiation thereto can be decreased, any mechanical interactions can be prevented or reduced. According to the present method, since the difference in the swelling between the metallic members due to neutron irradiation thereto can be decreased due to the above operation temperature condition, any mechanical interactions can be prevented or reduced.

Reactor

In a fast breeder reactor provided with a core comprising a core region packed with a fissile material and a blanket region which surrounds the outside of said core region and most of which is formed of a fertile material, and a plurality of control rods which are put in and out of the above core region by a control rod driving device, the fast breeder reactor of the present invention is characterized in that each of said control rods is constructed of a neutron absorber region packed with a neutron absorber and a gas region disposed in the end portion on the side further separated from said control rod driving device than said neutron absorber region. With this invention, the spectral shift effect can be produced by utilizing said gas region, thereby increasing the core reactvity of the fast breeder reactor.

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Hitachi, Japan

Ryoji Masumi