Neutronic parameters analysis of a PWR fuel element using silicon carbide claddings with SRAC2006/NODAL3 codes

Silicon carbide (SiC) fuel cladding has several primary advantages over zircaloy claddings. SiC cladding absorbs very low thermal neutrons, little corrosion, and no hydrogen pickup during normal operation, making it an attractive choice for use as cladding on PWR fuel. In this paper, AP1000 neutronic parameters are evaluated using SiC and ZIRLO (Westinghouse’s zircaloy) cladding. The steady-state calculation for the fuel element was simulated by the PIJ module of SRAC2006 code as well as the core calculation using the NODAL3 code. The calculated kinf values are always higher for SiC cladding including all fuel temperature reactivity coefficient is negative same as ZIRLO cladding. The core calculation shows that the excess reactivity is higher 337 pcm using SiC cladding than ZIRLO cladding. It shows that the SiC cladding can be used in the AP1000 with some correction because of the quite higher excess reactivity.