The AP-Th 1000 an advanced concept to use MOX of thorium in a closed fuel cycle

Abstract

This work presents a study for the firsts 4 cycles of recharge of the reactor AP-Th1000, a version of the reactor AP1000 using mixed uranium and thorium oxides as fuel, which the feasibility studies had been already demonstrated in previous study for a first cycle. The AP-Th 1000 study is a proposal to start the thorium fuel cycle using the most common reactor technology in the nuclear industry, the Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR). A preliminary closed cycle study is carried out for the first 4 cycles where the production of 233U are evaluated. In cycles 2, 3 and 4, new assemblies with a fuel of the remaining uranium from the previous cycle are used instead of assemblies removed from the core, thus being a mixture of different uranium’s (232U, 233U, 234U, 235U, 236U and 238U) , where the additional fissile material inserted into the fuel to ensure the 18-month operation of the reactor comes from uranium oxides enriched at 20 w / o.. The results demonstrate the viability of the proposal and again using closed fuel cycle.