Recent progress on fast ignition (FI) enables us to design an IFE power plant with a 1MJ-class, compact laser whose output energy is 1/4 of previous central ignition scheme. Basing on the FI scheme, we conceptually designed a laser fusion power plant driven with cooled-Yb:YAG, ceramic lasers. In this design activity, we newly evaluated the gain curve for FI basing on latest simulation code. Coo...

The Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) features a closed fuel cycle for efficient conversion of fertile uranium and management of minor actinides. A full actinide-recycle fuel cycle is envisioned with two major options: One involves intermediatesized (150 to 500 MWe) sodium-cooled fast reactors with uranium-plutonium-minor-actinidezirconium metal alloy fuel, supported by a fuel cycle based on pyr...

Numerous fast reactor constructions have been appeared world-wide in pages of institutes’ reports. Most of them are benchmark exercise with complicated features. We shall examine 6 constructions: 5 sodium cooled and 1 lead cooled. Critical and dynamic parameters as well as their burnup are calculated and compared with each other. The computational tool is composed from NJOY, TRANSX, KENO and TI...

The AHTR is a pool-type reactor with graphite matrix coated-particle fuel and a clean molten salt coolant [1]. Due to the very high thermal inertia provided by the pool configuration and molten-salt coolant of the AHTR, the thermal power of the AHTR can be substantially higher than an equivalent gas-cooled reactor, likely exceeding 2000 MW(t). The AHTR, with a molten-salt intermediate loop and ...

The efforts conducted so far to deal with and evaluate the reliability of passive safety systems (as the thermal-hydraulic passive systems), being implemented in advanced water cooled reactor designs, has aroused an amount of open issues. They should be addressed and conveniently worked out, since it is the major goal of the international community (e.g IAEA) to strive to harmonize the differen...

European Union’s (EU) (currently 27 Member States) shared-cost research has been organised in Framework Programmes (FP) of durations of 4-5 years since 1984. The 6th European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) Framework Programme (2002-06) and the current 7th FP (2007-11) have been allocated a fission research budget respectively of 209 and 287 Million Euro from the European Community (EC). In F...

In Japan Atomic Energy Agency, an innovative sodium cooled fast reactor of 1500MWe class, JSFR, has been investigated on the Fast Reactor Cycle Technology Development project. A compact reactor vessel (R/V) and a column type upper inner structure with a radial slit for an arm of a fuel-handling machine are adopted. These result in increase of the spatial-averaged velocity on the horizontal cros...