Fast Reactor Database 2006 Update
Foreword
Liquid metal cooled fast reactors (LMFRs) have been under development for about 50 years. Ten experimental fast reactors and six prototype and commercial size fast reactor plants have been constructed and operated.
In many cases, the overall experience with LMFRs has been rather good, with the reactors themselves and also the various components showing remarkable performances, well in accordance with the design expectations. The fast reactor system has also been shown to have very attractive safety characteristics, resulting to a large extent from the fact that the fast reactor is a low pressure system with large thermal inertia and negative power and temperature coefficients.
In addition to the LMFRs that have been constructed and operated, more than ten advanced LMFR projects have been developed, and the latest designs are now close to achieving economic competitivity with other reactor types.
In the current world economic climate, the introduction of a new nuclear energy system based on the LMFR may not be considered by utilities as a near future option when compared to other potential power plants. However, there is a strong agreement between experts in the nuclear energy field that, for sustainability reasons, long term development of nuclear power as a part of the world’s future energy mix will require the fast reactor technology, and that, given the decline in fast reactor development projects, data retrieval and knowledge preservation efforts in this area are of particular importance.
This publication contains detailed design data and main operational data on experimental, prototype, demonstration, and commercial size LMFRs. Each LMFR plant is characterized by about 500 parameters: physics, thermohydraulics, thermomechanics, by design and technical data, and by relevant sketches. The focus is on practical issues that are useful to engineers, scientists, managers, university students and professors with complete technical information of a total of 37 LMFR plants.
The recurring themes are the selection and summary of the data associated with the choice of coolant, fuel and structural materials, reduction of the steel weight, simplification of the plant design/layout, other important fast reactor design issues, and how to solve these problems.
In the field of fast reactor design and operational data, the last reference document published by the IAEA was the 1996 Fast Reactor Database (IAEA-TECDOC-866). Since its publication, quite a lot has happened: the construction of two new reactors has been launched, and conceptual/design studies were initiated for various fast reactors, e.g. the Japanese JSFR-1500 and the Russian BN-1800 (both cooled by sodium), as well as for a wholly new line of LMFR concepts — modular reactors cooled by sodium and by lead-bismuth alloy, and prototype and demonstration commercial size fast reactors cooled by lead.
The data were produced by the IAEA’s Technical Working Group on Fast Reactors (TWG-FR). For many of the TWG-FR Member States there is a significant history of fast reactor development, often extending over a period of 40+ years. The new and updated information on LMFR, which are in operation, under construction or development, has been prepared with contributions from China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation. The information contained in IAEA-TECDOC-866, produced by France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, was included in the present report with some modification taking into account last events. The IAEA expresses its appreciation to all those who have participated in the preparation of the data for publication.
The IAEA officers responsible for this publication were A. Rineiskii, A. Stanculescu and Y. Yanev of the Department of Nuclear Energy.
