Nukleare Untersuchungen an einem Kugelhaufenreaktor mit diskontinuierlichem Kugelabzug

A pebble-bed reactor is considered with a discontinuous one-way loading scheme of the thorium or uranium fuel cycle with regard to thermodynamics and nuclear techniques, and compared with the continuous one-way loading scheme of the pebble-bed reactor. Because of the required excess-reactivity of the discontinuously fuelled pebble-bed reactor, the fuel-cycle cost become remarkably higher than those of the continuously fuelled one. Due to the high breeding ratio, the increase of the fuel-cycle cost are the lowest with the thorium fuel cycle. The results stated here might also be valid for a high-temperature reactor with prismatix fuel elements. This study was performed in the frame of the collaboration between Institut für Reaktorentwicklung of KFA Jülich GmbH and Lehrstuhl für Reaktortechnik of RWTH Aachen