Design of fuel assembly for material sample irradiation in thorium environment - perspectives and challenges

by Prof. Mikołaj Oettingen (Head of Nuclear Energy Technology Team, Department of Nuclear Energy and Radiochemistry, Faculty of Energy and Fuels, AGH University of Krakow)

Thursday 12 Dec 2024, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Warsaw

Thorium can be used as an alternative fuel for nuclear power generation. It presents many advantages over uranium, which shows its usability in the nuclear fuel cycle. Its concentration in nature is about 3-5 times larger than the concentration of uranium. In addition, the long-term radiotoxicity of the spent thorium fuel is significantly lower than the radiotoxicity of the spent uranium fuel. The research on the thorium fuel cycle is also performed in Poland. Department of Nuclear Energy and Radiochemistry, Faculty of Energy and Fuels of AGH University of Krakow owns a unique in Poland subcritical Th-Pb fuel assembly dedicated to research on thorium fuel. In the past, the Th-Pb assembly was used to measure the nuclear reaction rates and to validate numerical Monte Carlo calculations with experimental measurements. Nowadays, the effort was taken to redesign the assembly and to plan new irradiation experiments[1].

[1] Oettingen, M.; Stanisz, P. Monte Carlo modelling of Th-Pb fuel assembly with californium neutron source. Nukleonika 2018, 63, 87–91. https://doi.org/10.2478/nuka-2018-0011