Neutronic Analysis of the Westinghouse Demonstration Lead Fast Reactor

The DLFR reactor is a pre-conceptual design for a lead-cooled fast reactor developed by the Westinghouse Electric Company. The reactor is a demonstration version of the project and it is intended to prove the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the technology, prior to commercial deployment. For the purpose of this paper, a DLFR reactor core model was created in OpenMC software, through which the effects of two fuel types – uranium dioxide and uranium nitride – on the neutronic parameters were studied. Moreover, the paper presents a number of advantages of fast reactors over the more commonly used thermal reactors. A series of simulations were carried out using the Monte Carlo method for two fuel configurations of the DLFR reactor core. The output data analyzed included the effective neutron multiplication factor, neutron flux as a function of neutron energy, conversion ratio, and isotope mass change as a function of time and burnup. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that uranium nitride is a promising alternative fuel relative to uranium dioxide, feasible for use in new types of nuclear reactors. In addition, it has been shown that minor actinide production is significantly lower in fast reactors compared to thermal reactors. This indicates that the greater use of fast-spectrum reactors can contribute significantly to reducing the long-lived nuclear waste disposal problem.