Abstract
Design study of a Gas Turbine High Temperature Reactor with electric power of approximately 300MW (GTHTR300) has progressed in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. The GTHTR300 is a simplified and economical power plant with a high level of safety characteristics and a high plant efficiency of approximately 46%.
The nuclear, thermal and hydraulic design of the GTHTR300 is worked out under many kinds of limitations from economical and safety requirements. By applying an innovative refueling scheme using a sandwich shuffling method and longer effective burnable poisons, economical requirements of long refueling interval of two years in order to establish a high availability factor of over 90%, a high average fuel burn-up of 120GWd/t, and so on, were attained. Also a newly arranged control rod insertion scheme was adopted in order to meet the safety requirements, such as, a low control rod ejection worth of less than 0.2%Δk, the power density of less than 13W/cm3 and the maximum fuel temperature of lower than 1, 400°C. It was clarified by this study that the design to meet the economical and safety requirements is attainable.
In this paper, the nuclear, thermal and hydraulic design features of GTHTR300 are described.
