Title: A non-proliferation study of a typical pebble bed reactor
Author: Dany Mulyana, Research Center for Nuclear Reactor Technology, Indonesian Research and Innovation Agency, KST B.J., Habibie, Jakarta, Indonesia
Abstract: This work highlights the proliferation issue of pebble bed reactors (PBR) and possible approaches to safeguard the special nuclear materials (SNM) associated. A set of Monte Carlo modeling and simulations has been completed to understand the inherent SNM production mechanism in PBR. This work used China’s HTR-10 reactor modeled in MCNP6 environment. The works revealed that the possible higher target burnup level compensates the use of the high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). The quantity of produced uranium is somewhat comparable to the one typically produced by pressurized water reactors (PWRs). However, the quality of produced plutonium by PBR is higher, about 80% vs. 60% although the high number of pebbles is required to form one significant quantity (SQ) of SNM. PBRs would also raise the need for nuclear waste reprocessing due to the higher volume produced by the reactors. However, it was found that the conventional safeguards approach using high-resolution gamma spectroscopy may be sufficient to verify the SNM in the fresh and used fuel pebbles.