Proliferation Attractiveness of Nuclear Material in a Small Modular Pressure Tube SCWR

Abstract

The SuperSafe© Reactor (SSR), has been recently proposed[1] as a small modular version of the Canadian supercritical water cooled reactor (SCWR)[2]. This reactor is a heavy water moderated, pressure tube reactor using supercritical light water as coolant. The current SSR design is to generate 300 MWetaking advantage of the expected high thermal efficiency (assumed 45%).As one of the reactor types being considered by the Generation-IV International Forum, it is expected that this SCWR design will feature enhanced proliferation resistance over current generation technologies. Proliferation resistance assessments are wide-ranging, multidisciplinary efforts that are typically performed at a number of levels, from a state level down to a specific facility level. One small, but particularly important, sub-assessment is that of nuclear material attractiveness, that is, assessing the quality of nuclear materials throughout the fuel cycle for use in making a nuclear explosive device. The attractiveness of materials for three different SSR fuel options is examined in this work.