Progress in Nuclear Energy. Vol. 37, No. 1-4, PP.

339-344, 2000
Pergamon 0 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
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PII:SO149-1970(00)00068-8

ACCELERATOR-DRIVEN SYSTEM FOR TRANSMUTATION

OF HIGH-LEVEL WASTE

KAZUFUMI TSUJIMOTO, TOSHINOBU SASA, KENJI

NISHIHARA, TAKAKAZU TAKIZUKA, HIDEKI TAKANO

Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute,

Tokai-mura, Naka-gun, Ibaraki, Japan 319-l 195
Phone:+81 (29)282-6935, Fax: +81(29)282-6438
Email:ktsujlji@omega. tokai.jaeri.go.jp

ABSTRACT

The accelerator-driven transmutation system has been studied at the Japan

Atomic Energy Research Institute. This system is a hybrid system which
consists of a high intensity accelerator, a spallation target and a subcritical core
region. In the conceptual design study, two types of system concepts, sodium
cooled and lead-bismuth cooled system, are being studied. In this study, we
focus on our lead-bismuth cooled accelerator-driven transmutation system to
investigate basic characteristics. The fuel compositions were optimized for
efficient transmutation of minor actinide. The transmutation of long-lived
fission products was also considered. 0 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Japanese long-term program called OMEGA has started in 1988 for research and development of
new technologies for partitioning and transmutation of minor actinides and fission products. Nuclides
in high-level waste to be transmuted are minor actinides (MA) and long-lived fission products (LLFP)
such as “Tc, 12’1. MA should be transmuted mainly through fission reactions because the transmuta-
tion of MA by neutron capture reactions has the possibility of increasing higher actinides, while the
thermal capture is main transmutation reaction for LLFP. Under the OMEGA Program, the Japan
Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) is proceeding with the research and deveIopment on proton
accelerator-driven system (ADS) (Takizuka, et al., 1997). The ADS is a hybrid system which consists
of a high intensity proton accelerator, a spallation target and a subcritical fuel region. MA from power
reactors are used for a fuel of the ADS. Many spallation neutrons are generated by spallation reaction
of protons from a high intensity linear accelerator in the spallation target. The subcritical fuel region

339
340 K. Tsujimoto et al.

surrounding the spallation target is driven by the spallation neutrons. It is possible to transmute LLFP
in a thermalized region surrounding subcritical fuel region.
A fast reactor design using heavy liquid metal coolant (lead or lead-bismuth) in place of sodium
has been proposed in Russia (E. P. Velikhov et.al, 1990). JAERI showed also a compact integrated
reactor system with a safety core concept (Takano, H., et a1.,1994). There are some advantages in
system with heavy liquid metal coolants in comparison with the sodium cooled system, though the
thermal property is inferior to that of sodium. In the ADS, heavy liquid metals are simultaneously able
to be used as a coolant and spallation target. From these reasons, recently, a preliminary design study
was started for Pb-Bi cooled option of ADS at JAERI (Tsujimoto, K., et al. 1998, Tsujimoto, K., et
al. 1999). In this study, we show the design study for Pb-Bi cooled ADS, such as a spallation target
design, optimization of fuel composition and preliminary plant design. The optimization for the main
purpose of ADS, namely transmutation of MA and LLFP, is important. For neutronic calculations, the
ATRAS code system (Sasa, T., et al. ,1999) was used with the JENDL-3.2 library (Nakagawa, T., et
al. ,1995).

2. BASIC DESIGN STUDY OF ACCELERATOR-DRIVEN SYSTEM

2.1 Spallation Target Design

The most different point between ADS and conventional reactor is the existence of the accelerator beam
line and the spallation target region. The spallation target design is one of the most important design
parameters, because ADS is operated by neutrons generated in the spallation target. It is impossible to
optimize the heat distribution in target for Pb-Bi cooled ADS because flowing liquid Pb-Bi is used for
spallation target. However, the axial relative positional relation between beam incident face and fuel
region becomes important. Optimum incident face position for effectively using the spallation neutrons,
and for minimizing the beam current is required. The change of the beam current necessary for obtaining
same power in fuel region by moving the incident face position is examined. In this calculation, target
and fuel region radius are set to 25 and 125 cm, respectively, thermal power generated in fuel region is
800 MW and incident proton energy is 1.5 GeV. The multiplication factor which has an important effect
on the coupling of the spallation neutrons and the subcritical core is set to 0.95. These parameters are
standard values for the JAERI proposed ADS. The results present that the beam current necessary for
the same power in the fuel region becomes minimum in case setting the beam incident face at about 10
cm below from the core top, as shown in Fig. 1. In this case, the neutron flux distribution in the fuel
region is almost flatten, while there is a relatively high peak at about 20 cm depth in the spallation
neutron distribution.

2.2 Transmutation characteristics of ADS

The transmutation of MA and the burnup reactivity swing are especially important to estimate the
performance of ADS. The system is designed to transmute MA from 10 units of the existing LWR
with reactor power of 1 GWe. The proton beam power needed to operate ADS is related to the
multiplication factor of the system. Therefore, the minimization of the burnup swing is an important
factor in operation of ADS. The system is optimized to maximize the MA transmutation rate and to
minimize the burnup swing.
The mixture of the mono-nitride of Pu and MA and inert matrix (ZrN) is used as the fuel. N-15
enriched nitrogen were assumed to be used for both (Pu,MA)-nitride and ZrN. The composition of MA
was assumed to be that in the spent fuel of the 33 GWd/t burnup in PWR after 5 years cooling. The
initial contents of Pu and the inert matrix were adjusted so as to satisfy the initial condition, namely
the multiplication factor of 0.95 for the initial loading core. We considered the optimum indices for
the lead-bismuth cooled ADS; MA transmutation rate above 10% per year and burnup swing below 2%
during 10 years operation. The amount of MA generated from one year operation of a LWR is about
 Transmutation of high-level waste 341

14 ’
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Distance from Core Top (cm)

Fig. 1 Proton beam current necessary for nominal reactor power with distance from core top to
beam/target interface

25 kg, so MA of 250 kg must be transmuted to support 10 units. To search the optimum parameters,
the parametric burnup calculations were done. We assumed one burnup cycle was constructed by the
burnup of two years and the cooling of three years. In the cooling period, the fission products were
removed and the fresh fuel of equal mass to the fission products was added to the burnup fuel. The
additional fresh fuel contained MA only, so Pu was loaded only once at the initial loading. In this
calculation, we assumed that the core thermal power is 800 MW and the average linear power is 300
W/cm. The core height and radius are 100 cm and 122 cm, respectively, with the 50 cm diameter
spallation target area located at the core center.
As a result of the parametric survey, it was found that the burnup swing depends on the initial
Pu content. The k-eff increases with the burnup and exceeds critical level in cases of the initial Pu
loading below 40 wt.%. This is because Pu-238 produced from Np-237 has large fission cross section.
The system always must be subcritical in ADS, so initial Pu loading below 40% can not be used. On
the other hand, in cases of that for initial Pu loading above 40%, the multiplication factor decreases
with the burnup. The burnup reactivity swing is minimized in the core with the initial Pu loading of
40%. The ratio of pin pitch and pin diameter (P/D) is also an important parameter in system cooled
by a heavy liquid metal coolant, such as lead-bismuth. The burnup swing is suppressed in the core of
tight lattice with small P/D value, however pumping power for tight lattice increase. Considering t,he
condition in which these were contradictory, P/D value should be made to be 1.5. The changes of the
multiplication factor and the proton beam power for the supposed ADS are shown in Fig. 2. The figure
indicates that the change of proton beam power is about 30%, though the burnup swing in 10 years
operation is only 1.8%. The maximum beam power is needed at the maximum system subcritical level
and corresponds to about 30 MW.
In addition to MA, LLFP, especially Tc-99 and I-129, also should be transmuted. The capture
reaction rate of LLFP increases in the thermal energy region. Neutron spectrum in the fuel region of
the ADS is hard, so it is necessary to establish the region with a softer spectrum for transmutation of
LLFP. However, the effect on the MA transmutation performance of ADS is significant, when spectrum
shift region for transmutation of LLFP was put in the fuel region. It was considered to put the spectrum
shift region which is composed by the mixture of zirconium hydride (ZrH) and LLFP in radial reflector
region, to minimize the effect on the MA transmutation property of ADS. To search the parameters
for the most efficient transmutation of LLFP, the transmutation rates for various amount of ZrH and
size of spectrum shift region were examined. The transmutation rates for Tc-99 and I-129 in two years
operation at 800 MWt are shown in Fig. 3. The transmutation rates for both Tc and I become the
342 K. Tsujimoto et al.

Maximum Beam Power -3OMW

0.955 2 ...p - 1.0
:: ,_..”. . :___f
:.’ &.-” j
b . . . . .._...__.____
9 P
0.950 / - 0.9 L
,: g
,t
a-.. . ..________.~ B
F
; 0.945 .:
,:’ O.9 8
i L-r ! D

o,g30t. . I . . . I . . I.~.., . I . . 4 ,,.. 0.5

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Burnup Days

Fig. 2 Changes of k-eff and proton beam power for supposed ADS

largest in the spectrum shift region width of about 5 cm. If the region width becomes larger, ,the
transmutation efficiency becomes worse. The transmutation rates increase with the amount of ZrH
since the spectrum is more softened with many quantities of ZrH. However, when ZrH over 75% is let
in, there is the possibility to affect on the MA transmutation property. We concluded optimum amount
of ZrH and region width are 75% and 5 cm, respectively. The amounts of transmutation for Tc-99 and
I-129 are about 23 kg and 4 kg, respectively, during 2 years operation in this case.

15 ..,.,.,..,...I,...,,....-

--+--ZrH
: FP(Tc.1)= (2:l) --a--Z,“: FP(Tc.1)= (21)

-ZrH :FP(Tc.1)= (3:l)

0 1~~~‘~~~,‘~~~~1~,,~‘,,,~ 0 ~~,~‘~,~,‘,,~~1~~11’1~11
0 5 IO 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25
Spectrum shift region width (cm) Spectrum shift region width (cm)

Fig. 3 Transmutation rate of Tc-99 and I-129 in lead-bismuth cooled ADS

2.3 Preliminary ADS Plant Design

The preliminary plant design was performed based on the results of neutronic calculation. The concepts
for Pb-Bi cooled ADS are shown in Fig. 4. To establish a feasible lead-bismuth cooled ADS, it is
necessary to overcome the subject of aseismic design and thermal stress resistance because the reactor
will be excessively massive. It will be difficult to realize the heavy piping system, although the loop
type reactor is used for sodium cooled ADS. So, the pool type reactor is selected for lead-bismuth
cooled ADS. The intermediate heat exchange system is possible to be eliminated as a result of utilizing
 Transmutation of high-level waste 343

remarkable features of the lead-bismuth coolant, that is, lead-bismuth is chemically inert. The core, the
core support structure and the primary heat transport system components are built in a reactor vessel.
The primary heat exchanger consists of the steam generator and its helical coil tubes, and encircle
the center part of the reactor which includes the core and the proton beam line. This type of steam
generator will be able to get the reactor vessel size the smallest. The space between the outer shell of
steam generator and the reactor vessel is the cold-leg flow path of primary coolant. The primary pumps
are located at the cold region of the primary coolant flow path. The pumps are located above the helical
coil steam generator from the viewpoint of maintenance. The steam generators are suspended from the
reactor upper flange by the same reason.

Fig. 4 Preliminary design of Pb-Bi cooled ADS plant

The present design study is the conceptual one, so more detailed designs are needed to realize
these system. The detailed specification of proton beam window is an especially important part of ADS.
A behavior analysis of Po-210 and spallation products in primary Pb-Bi coolant will be necessary.

3. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The conceptual design study of ADS is in progress at JAERI under the OMEGA program. JAERI has
proposed a concept of a Pb-Bi cooled ADS as a possible alternative option. The system is designed as a
dedicated transmuter with a fast neutron spectrum to burn MAs from about 10 LWRs. The optimum
fuel composition and the fuel lattice parameters were determined to optimize the burnup reactivity
swing and the transmutation properties. The possibility to transmute LLFP in thermalized neutron
energy region were examined. The preliminary plant design based on the present neutronic study was
made, while there are some technical problems to be resolved, such as material compatibility, beam
window design, etc, for establishment of feasible ADS.

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