Investigation of the Use of Alternative Thorium-based Fuel in Generation-IV Fast Reactor

The future demand on energy sources is expected to increase drastically. Of the available energy sources, nuclear energy is considered a promising candidate for satisfying this demand with minimum environmental impacts. However, the sustainability of this source relies on the availability of nuclear fuel. The main aim of this work is to analyze the use of thorium as alternative fuel in one of generation IV fast reactors. The selected design for this work is the Gas cooled Fast Reactor. MCNPX transport code was used to design a representative fuel assembly of this advanced concept to simulate the neutronic performance of thorium-based fuel compared to the reference uranium-based fuel. The results of fuel burnup have showed that the use of thorium-based fuel can lead to a smaller reactivity swing during the fuel cycle which allow for a longer fuel burnup duration compared to the reference fuel.