Special isotopes of the FUGEN nuclear reactor

Abstract

The Canadian and Japanese nuclear regulatory bodies have shown dissimilarities between the isotopes considered to be of interest in decommissioning similarly styled heavy water reactors. This research examines the quantity of the isotopes that are of interest to the decommissioning of both the FUGEN nuclear power plant in Japan and the Pickering nuclear power plant in Canada and makes a comparison between them. This comparison is accomplished by modeling the fuel assemblies of both reactors in MCNP and performing depletion calculations on them to calculate the type and quantity of the produced fission and activation products, after which ratio comparisons are made between reactors. The FUGEN fuel has shown a greater isotope production than Pickering when normalized to fuel volume, with isotopes in FUGEN showing up to forty-five times the concentration when compared per unit volume with many isotopes produced in FUGEN not appearing in Pickering at all.