| Summary: | Recently, increasing demands on the reduction of fuel cycle costs have led to higher burnup fuel designs. According to the erbia-credit super high burnup fuel concept, developed by mixing low content of erbia to UO2 powder directly after reconversion process so that all fuel pins in a given fuel assembly are homogeneously doped, the present study aims to characterize, from a neutronic point of view, a 17 × 17 pressurized water reactor assembly enriched to 10.27 wt.% in 235U with an erbia content of 1 at.% (i.e. 0.7 wt.%) by means of the deterministic neutronic code APOLLO2. For this purpose, a simplified thermal-hydraulic analysis was performed in order to evaluate the effects on fuel thermal conductivity of adding erbia to uranium oxide. The results obtained allow to conclude that an Er-doped assembly enriched to >5 wt.% in 235U represents an advantageous solution for very long fuel cycles, and it is so suited for very high burnups.
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