Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Boundary condition coupling methods and its application to BOP-integrated transient simulation of SMART

  • Jongin Yang (Multi-purpose Small Reactor Development Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) ;
  • Hong Hyun Son (Multi-purpose Small Reactor Development Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) ;
  • Yong Jae Lee (SMART Development Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) ;
  • Doyoung Shin (Multi-purpose Small Reactor Development Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) ;
  • Taejin Kim (Multi-purpose Small Reactor Development Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) ;
  • Seong Soo Choi (Multi-purpose Small Reactor Development Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute)
  • Received : 2022.09.21
  • Accepted : 2023.02.17
  • Published : 2023.06.25
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Abstract

The load-following operation of small modular reactors (SMRs) requires accurate prediction of transient behaviors that can occur in the balance of plants (BOP) and the nuclear steam supply system (NSSS). However, 1-D thermal-hydraulics analysis codes developed for safety and performance analysis have conventionally excluded the BOP from the simulation by assuming ideal boundary conditions for the main steam and feed water (MS/FW) systems, i.e., an open loop. In this study, we introduced a lumped model of BOP fluid system and coupled it with NSSS without any ideal boundary conditions, i.e., in a closed loop. Various methods for coupling boundary conditions at MS/FW were tested to validate their combination in terms of minimizing numerical instability, which mainly arises from the coupled boundaries. The method exhibiting the best performance was selected and applied to a transient simulation of an integrated NSSS and BOP system of a SMART. For a transient event with core power change of 100-20-100%, the simulation exhibited numerical stability throughout the system without any significant perturbation of thermal-hydraulic parameters. Thus, the introduced boundary-condition coupling method and BOP fluid system model can expectedly be employed for the transient simulation and performance analysis of SMRs requiring daily load-following operations.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) of the Ministry of Science and ICT (2020M2D7A1079182).

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