DESIGN AND MODELLING OF OXIDE FUEL FOR INCINERATION OF AMERICIUM AND PLUTONIUM IN AN EXPERIMENTAL ADS
The interest to the accelerator-driven subcritical systems (ADS) devoted to the incineration of plutonium and minor actinides is a subject of study around the world. Since 1997, the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK·CEN is performing the pre-design studies aiming at the development of a small experimental ADS called MYRRHA which could be a step towards a prototype design of an ADStransmuter. In the present article, some results of the preliminary modelling of the behaviour of the fuel pins, filled with (Am0.5Pu0.5)O2-x dissolved in ThO2 matrix and with the same fuel in YSZ matrix, under typical ADS operation conditions are discussed and compared with the behaviour of MOX. Modelling has been performed with the fuel performance code MACROS-II which is under development and testing at SCK·CEN. A care was taken to model correctly the re-distribution of transuranium elements, fission products and helium within the fuel pellets and to their impact on the fuel performances.
MA AND LLFP TRANSMUTATION PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT IN THE MYRRHA
A typical fast sub-critical core configuration dedicated to MA and LLFP transmutation studies has been defined containing loaded with 605.5 kg (heavy metal) of highly Pu-enriched MOX (U-Pu) fuel, 18.089 kg of MA and 24.70 kg of Tc. The core was shown to achieve a primary source neutron multiplication factor, ks, of 0.962 (keff = 0.956) yielding, for a 5 mA proton beam, a thermal power of 53.7 MW. The performances of that core has been assessed as to it potential to transmute the loaded MA and LFFFP considering a one year operation cycle consisting of 3 times 90 effective full power days of irradiation with 30 days shut-down in between
Direct conversion pulsed UWB transceiver architecture
Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication is an emerging wireless technology that promises high data rates over short distances and precise locationing. The large available bandwidth and the constraint of a maximum power spectral density drives a unique set of system challenges. This paper addresses these challenges using two UWB transceivers and a discrete prototype platform.