Shuang Du
Principal Engineer
Westinghouse Electric Company

Abstract

A study was performed to investigate relative benefits of various burnable absorber assembly configurations for 24 month cycles of high power density PWR cores. Three equilibrium 24 month cycle core designs containing burnable absorber configurations using ZrB2 IFBA+WABA, ZrB2-Gadolinia, and only Gadolinia respectively were developed and analyzed using Westinghouse core design codes. These calculations have shown a considerable power peaking and fuel cycle cost advantage for the ZrB2/Gd hybrid design relative to cores containing the ZrB2-WABA and Gadolinia burnable absorber. Since this concept uses fuel pellets and rods that have already been approved and is currently in wide use throughout the industry, this hybrid assembly design can be deployed within the short term. This presentation describes the core physics, key safety parameters, and economic performance of the ZrB2/Gd hybrid assembly designs when used in 24 month core designs of high power density Westinghouse 4-Loop plants.

Biography

Shuang Du graduated with an M.S. from the Nuclear Engineering department of North Carolina State University in December 2008. Since then, he’s worked at Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC on various technical and commercial projects. He is currently responsible for Taiwan Power Company in the capacities of Principal Engineer and Project Manager.

***This seminar will be streamed live on our NCStateNuclear YouTube channel***