Design of small gas cooled fast reactor with two region of natural Uranium fuel fraction

A design study of small Gas Cooled Fast Reactor with two region fuel has been performed. In this study, design GCFR with Helium coolant which can be continuously operated by supplying mixed Natural Uranium without fuel enrichment plant or fuel reprocessing plant. The active reactor cores are divided into two region fuel i.e. 60% fuel fraction of Natural Uranium as inner core and 65% fuel fraction of Natural Uranium as outer core. Each fuel core regions are subdivided into ten parts (region-1 until region-10) with the same volume in the axial direction. The fresh Natural Uranium initially put in region-1, after one cycle of 10 years of burn-up it is shifted to region-2 and the each region-1 filled by fresh Natural Uranium. This concept is basically applied to all regions in both cores area, i.e. shifted the core of i^th region into i+1 region after the end of 10 years burn-up cycle. For the next cycles, we will add only Natural Uranium on each region-1. The burn-up calculation is performed using collision probability method PIJ (cell burn-up calculation) in SRAC code which then given eight energy group macroscopic cross section data to be used in two dimensional R-Z geometry multi groups diffusion calculation in CITATION code. This reactor can results power thermal 600 MWth with average power density i.e. 80 watt/cc. After reactor start-up the operation, furthermore reactor only needs Natural Uranium supply for continue operation along 100 years. This calculation result then compared with one region fuel design i.e. 60% and 65% fuel fraction. This core design with two region fuel fraction can be an option for fuel optimization.