PHWR

PHWR (CANDU) fuel
Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) are originally a Canadian design (also
called CANDU) accounting for ~6% of world installed nuclear generating
capacity. PHWRs use pressure tubes in which heavy water moderates and cools
the fuel. They run on natural (unenriched) or slightly enriched uranium oxide fuel
in ceramic pellet form, clad with zirconium alloy.
Characteristics: PHWR fuel rods are about 50 cm long and are assembled into
bundles approximately 10 cm in diameter. A fuel bundle comprises 28, 37 or 43
fuel elements arranged in several rings around a central axis (see Figure). Their
short length means that they do not require the support structures characteristic
of other reactor fuel types.
Properties: PHWR fuel does not attain high burnup, nor does it reside in the
reactor core for very long and so the fuel pellets swell very little during their life.
This means that PHWR fuel rods do not need to maintain a pellet cladding gap,
nor be highly pressurized with a filling gas (as for LWR fuel), indeed, the metal
cladding is allowed to collapse onto the fuel pellet thereby assuring good thermal
contact.
Assembly: The fuel bundles are loaded into horizontal channels or pressure tubes
which penetrate the length of the reactor vessel (known as the calandria), and
this can be done while the reactor is operating at full power. About twelve
bundles are loaded into each fuel channel depending on the model a 790 MWe
CANDU reactor contains 480 fuel channels composed of 5,760 fuel bundles
containing over 5 million fuel pellets.
Process: The on load refuelling is a fully automated process: new fuel is inserted
into a channel at one end and used fuel is collected at the other. This feature
means that the PHWR is inherently flexible with its fuel requirements, and can
run on different fuels requiring different residence times, eg natural uranium,
slightly enriched uranium, plutonium bearing fuels and thorium based fuels.
Fast neutron reactor fuel
There is only one commercially operating fast reactor (FNRs) in service today
the BN600 at Beloyarsk in Russia. There are two FNRs under construction an
800 MWe unit in Russia and a 500 MWe unit in India (which expects to build five
more). Two BN800 units were planned in China.
Fast neutron reactors (FNR) are unmoderated and use fast neutrons to cause
fission. Hence they mostly use plutonium as their basic fuel, or sometimes high
enriched uranium to start them off (they need about 2030% fissile nuclei in the
fuel). The plutonium is bred from U238 during operation. If the FNR is configured
to have a conversion ratio above 1 (i.e. more fissile nuclei are created than
fissioned) as originally designed, itis called a Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR). FNRs
use liquid metal coolants such as sodium and operate at higher temperatures.
(See also Fast Neutron Reactor information paper)
Apart from the main FNR fuel, there are numerous heavy nuclides notably U238,
but also Am, Np and Cm that are fissionable in the fast neutron spectrum
compared with the small number of fissile nuclides in a slow (thermal) neutron
field (just U235, Pu239 and U233).
A FNR fuel can therefore include a mixture of transuranic elements. Also it can be
in one of several chemical forms, including standard oxide ceramic, mixed oxide
ceramic (MOX), single or mixed nitride ceramics and metallic fuels. Further, FNR
fuel can be fabricated in pellet form or using the vibro packmethod in which
graded powders are loaded and compressed directly into the cladding tube.
The core of an FNR is much smaller than a conventional reactor, and cores tend
to be designed with distinct seed and blanket regions according to whether
the reactor is to be operated as a burner or a breeder. In each case the fuel
composition for the seed and blanket regions are different the central seed
region uses fuel with a high fissile content (and thus high power and neutron
emission level), and the blanket region has a low fissile content but a high level
of neutron absorbing material which can be fertile (for a breeding design, eg
U238) or a waste absorber to be transmuted.
BN600 fuel assemblies are 3.5 m long, 96 mm wide, weigh 103 kg and comprise
top and bottom nozzles (to guide coolant flow) and a central fuel bundle. The
central bundle is a hexagonal tube and for seed fuel houses 127 rods, each 2.4 m
long and 7 mm diameter with ceramic pellets in three uranium enrichment
levels 17%, 21% and 26%. Blanket fuel bundles have 37 rods containing
depleted uranium. BN600 fuel rods use low swelling stainless steel cladding.
FNRs use liquid metal coolants such as sodium or a lead bismuth eutectic
mixture and these allow for higher operating temperatures about 550C, and
thus have higher energy conversion efficiency. They are capable of high fuel
burnup.

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PHWR (CANDU) fuel

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