Core Subcriticality as a Tool of Safety Enhancement

Core subcriticality can play an important role if the safety enhancement of a nuclear system is necessary, in particular, when minor actinides submitted for transmutation cause essential degradation of the reactivity feedback effects or/and significant reduction of the delayed neutron fraction. The present work shows that core subcriticality together with thermohydraulics optimization can compensate for the possible degradation of the Doppler effect and the reduction of the delayed neutron fraction. The particular dependence of the spallation neutron yield allows the creation of a supplementary negative feedback effect in case of accelerator coupled hybrid systems. A number of quantitative examples are provided in this context.