Neutronic Analysis of Hydride Microreactor Fuelled with UH3 and ThC

In the frontier, outermost, and underdeveloped area (3T) in Indonesia, one of the primary problems that must be addressed is the severely limited access to electricity. In order to fulfil the electricity demand in 3T areas, a simple, cheap, safe, and clean power generation system is required. Hydride microreactor is a conceptual micro nuclear reactor design proposed to address the issue. This research is aimed to analyze the neutronic properties of hydride microreactor fueled with a combination of uranium hydride (UH3) and thorium carbide (ThC) fuel rods. The analysis was performed for core criticality, temperature coefficient of reactivity, and control rod worth. The UH3 rods use low-enriched uranium whose enrichment was varied between 11-15, while the number of ThC fuel rods were varied between 3 to 6 rods. The calculation was done using Serpent-2 code with ENDF/B-VII.0 library. The result shows that 13 LEU enrichment and 6 ThC rods allow the reactor to operate for more than 15 years while fulfilling the passive safety criteria. © 2024 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.