Monte Carlo Simulation On AHTR

Advanced high temperature reactor inherited many virtues and technical foundation. It is considered as a good security, sustainabe and nuclear nonproliferation economic reactor. Its commercialization under the condition of the current technology has high feasibility. Its core features mainly including two points:(1) the use of fluoride salt for cooling (molten salt reactor),(2) the use of coated fuel particles (high temperature gas cooled reactor, ultra high temperature reactor). In addition, in the two core features and on the basis of inheriting and developing a series of new concepts, such as:(3) the dynamic cooling safety system (liquid metal cooled reactor),(4) supercritical water energy circulation system (advanced coal-fired power plant, the supercritical water reactor),(5) the nuclear part of the design (the second generation of light water reactor). As a novelty reactor, advanced high temperature reactor (AHTR) has the higher thermal output, and higher conversion efficiency. Thus it can provide heat source for high temperature industrial application.At present, almost all the commercial nuclear reactors use uranium as fuel, but natural uranium resources are very limited. So for a long time, a, lot of work has been devoted to study the use of other nuclear fuel, including Th fuel. Th fuel received widespread attention, because of its special advantages. First of all, thorium reserves are abundant in nature, which is about three times the number of natural uranium; second, thorium breeder is able to be realized by using thorium-uranium cycle, In addition, the utilization of Th fuel is better for nonproliferation, and produces much less the long life of the heavy actinides than the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle. Research of thorium in nuclear power utilization of resources is an effective way to solve the fuel shortage.In this paper, Advanced High Temperature Reactor was studied by using monte carlo, MCNP and the SCALE. On the one hand, a GW order Prism Advanced High Temperature Reactor was studied theoretically and optimized to extend the Effective Full Power Days, boost its economy; on the other hand, we discussed the concept of a2MW reactor design and studied the influence of the related parameters to the reactor core physics. Finally, we studied the possibility of Th fuel used in AHTR.The research results show that through reasonable optimization and design, the existing Prism Advanced High-Temperature Reactor can get a more reasonable scheme to promote the economy. It is helpful for us to have more in-depth understanding,and this can be referenced in the future design for AHTR.