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In this research, curium oxide (CmO2) is studied as fuel for VVER-1200 reactor to get an attention to its energy value and possibilities. For this purpose, CmO2 is used in fuel rods or integrated burnable absorber (IBA) rods with and without UO2 and then compared with the conventional fuel assembly of VVER-1200 reactor. It is burned to 60 GWd/t by using SRAC-2006 code and JENDL-4.0 data library. From these studies, it is found that CmO2 is competent like UO2 as a fuel due to higher fission cross-section of 243Cm and 245Cm isotopes and neutron capture cross-section of 244Cm and 246Cm isotopes. As a result, when some or all of the UO2 of fuel rods or IBA rods are replaced by CmO2, we get a similar k-inf like the reference even with lower enrichment UO2 fuels. These studies show that the use of CmO2 as IBA rods is more effective than the fuel rods considering the initially loaded amount, power peaking factor (PPF), fuel temperature and void coefficient, and the quality of spent fuel. From a detailed study, 3% CmO2 with inert material ZrO2 in IBA rods are recommended for the VVER-1200 reactor assembly from the once through concept.

The objective of this research is to the use of americium (AmO2) as a burnable absorber effectively instead of conventional gadolinium (Gd2O3) for VVER-1200 reactor by analyzing its impacts on reactivity, power peaking factor (PPF), safety factor, and quality of the spent fuel. The assembly is burned to 60 GWd/t by using SRAC-2006 code and JENDL-4.0 data library for finding the optimum amount and effective way of using AmO2 as a burnable absorber. From these studies, it is found that AmO2 can decrease the excess reactivity like Gd2O3 without changing the criticality life span and enrichment of 235U. A homogeneous mixture of the 0.20% AmO2+ 4.95% enriched UO2 fuel rod (model MF-4) decreases the PPF than the reference assembly. The use of AmO2+UO2 in the integral burnable absorber (IBA) rod or the outer layer could also decrease the PPF up to 10 GWd/t but increases rapidly after 30 GWd/t, which could be a safety threat. The fuel temperature coefficient and void coefficient of the model MF-4 are the same as the reference assembly. In addition, 22% of initially loaded Am are burning effectively and contributing to the power production.