Plutonium and Minor Actinides Utilization in HTTR

Study on plutonium and minor actinides utilization in high temperature engineering test reactor (HTTR) has been carried out. In this study, we have employed the carbon dioxide as a coolant and compare the results with helium. The use of plutonium and minor actinides is one of the support system to proliferation resistance issue in the nuclear energy industry. Changing of uranium enrichment and variation of plutonium and minor actinides concentrations have been performed to evaluate the optimum fuel loading condition. The reactor cell calculation was performed by using SRAC-PIJ code, with nuclear data library was derived from JENDL3.2. Reactor core calculation was done by using SRAC-COREBN code. For the case of using helium as a coolant with plutonium and minor actinides as a fuel, the multiplication factor is higher than 1.0 at 17% enrichment of U-235, which means this reactor can achieved its critically condition. Whereas for carbon dioxide as a coolant with the same fuel, the result for multiplication factor is higher than 1.0 at 13% enrichment of U-235, which means that that carbon dioxide is better than helium gas for coolant if we utilize plutonium and minor actinides in HTTR..