Activity 5. Material balance in the front-end of the nuclear fuel cycle
Activity 5. Material balance in the front-end of the nuclear fuel cycle
Objective:
- Calculate the masses of the materials associated with each stage of the front-end.
Student work:
- Individual
Product:
- Case study solved
Resources:
- Interactive book H5P
Instructions:
Student
- Review the following interactive books generated in H5P
- Read carefully the situation described in the case study.
- Respond to the 4 points raised in a text file.
A 1,000 MWe (Megawatt electric) pressurized water reactor (PWR) operates on one-year cycles with a capacity factor of 80% and a thermal efficiency of 32.5%. Each year of operation, one third of the fuel assemblies is loaded, that is, a batch of 27.271 tons of fresh fuel of uranium enriched to 3.3% in Uranium-235 is introduced, and the other two thirds of the fuel are reloaded in the core; thus, a batch of fuel remains in the reactor for three years, reaching an average discharge burnup1 of 33,000 MWd/tU. Each batch has 50 fuel assemblies, so the total number of fuel assemblies in the core is 150.
As the person in charge of fuel management at the nuclear power plant, you need to carry out the necessary calculations to determine the specifications for the purchase of the upcoming reload of 27.271 tons of fresh fuel of uranium enriched to 3.3%. Calculate:
1. The amount of uranium ore (tons), assuming that it will be obtained from deposits in Australia in which the uranium grade is 1%.
In addition to calculating tons of ore, it is necessary to identify the name and the type of the deposits.
2. The tons of U3O8 , assuming that the uranium content in the yellowcake is 85%, and that there are no losses in the milling process.
3. Tons of natural UF6, assuming that there are no losses in the conversion process.
4. Tons of natural uranium, tons of depleted uranium, and kilograms of separate working units, assuming there are no losses in the enrichment process and that the plant operates with tails of 0.3%.
Upload the file with your answers in this space, naming the file as follows: LastNameFirstName_CaseStudyFrontEnd (example: DominguezEsteban_CaseStudyFrontEnd).
[1] Burnup is the measure of the energy released by the fuel (MWd -megawatt-days- or GWd) per mass (ton or kilogram) of initial heavy metal of uranium (or uranium-plutonium in the case of mixed oxide fuel).
Teacher
