Core design and transient analyses for weapons plutonium burning in VVER-1000 type reactors

The presented core calculations are aimed at the demonstration of the feasibility of weapon-grade plutonium burning in VVER-1000 type reactors with emphasis on safety aspects of the problem. Particular objectives of weapon-grade Pu burning are the net burning of fissile Pu isotopes in general, but also the conversion of the Pu vector of the fuel from weapon-grade to reactor plutonium. Three different fuel-loading options have been considered - full UO2 loading, mixed UO2 and MOX loading and full MOX loading. All considered cases meet the requirements on nuclear safety and design limits related to both normal operation and accident conditions. Two reactivity initiated accidents have been analyzed, caused by the ejection of the operational control rod group during 0.1 s and unauthorized withdrawal of the same control rod group with operational speed. The analyses have been performed for the beginning and the end of the fuel cycle. The maximum reactor power peak of 1.79 of the nominal reactor power was observed for the 2nd fuel-loading option (mixed loading). However, it does not cause an overheating of fuel rods.
The performed simulations demonstrated that the code DYN3D can be used for analyses of reactivity-initiated accidents in VVER type reactors with various fuel designs.
Feasibility of the VVER-1000 type reactor for burning weapon-grade Pu and changing its isotopic composition has been demonstrated.