• Title/Summary/Keyword: Advanced Power Reactor

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Digital power range neutron monitoring system

  • Endo, Yorimasa;Itoh,Toshiaki;Tai, Ichiro
    • 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 1988.10b
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    • pp.804-809
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    • 1988
  • PRNM(Power Range Neutron Monitoring) of BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) is a system that processes signals from about two hundred LPRM (Local Power Range Monitor) sensors in the nuclear reactor and this system monitors the neutron flux level during the plant operating region. Development has been made by employing a special technique for multiplexing neutron sensor signals and the recent advanced microelectronics technology. It is applicable to the total plant digital control system for a nuclear power plant.

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Inspection of Calandria Reactor Surface of Wolsung Nuclear Power Plant using Thermal Infrared Camera mounted on the Mobile Robot KAEROT/m2

  • Cho, Jai-Wan
    • Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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    • 2002.10a
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    • pp.578-578
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    • 2002
  • Thermal infrared imaging is a highly promising technology for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance of electronic, electrical and mechanical elements in nuclear power plants. However, conventional low-cost infrared imaging systems suffer from poor spatial resolution compared to commercial CCD cameras. This paper describes an approach to enhance inspection performances for calandria reactor area of Wolsung nuclear power plant through the technique of superimposing thermal infrared image into real CCD image. In the occurrence of thermal abnormalities on observation points and areas of calandria reactor area, unusual hot image taken from thermal infrared camera is mapped upon real CCD image. The performance of the technique has been evaluated in the experiment carried out at Wolsung nuclear power plant in the overhaul period. The results show that localizations of thermal abnormalities on calandria reactor face can be estimated accurately.

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ADVANCED TEST REACTOR TESTING EXPERIENCE - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

  • Marshall Frances M.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.38 no.5
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    • pp.411-416
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    • 2006
  • The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is one of the world's premier test reactors for providing the capability for studying the effects of intense neutron and gamma radiation on reactor materials and fuels. The physical configuration of the ATR, a 4-leaf clover shape, allows the reactor to be operated at different power levels in the comer 'lobes' to allow for different testing conditions for multiple simultaneous experiments. The combination of high flux (maximum thermal neutron fluxes of 1E15 neutrons per square centimeter per second and maximum fast [E>1.0 MeV] neutron fluxes of 5E14 neutrons per square centimeter per second) and large test volumes (up to 122 cm long and 12.7 cm diameter) provide unique testing opportunities. The current experiments in the ATR are for a variety of test sponsors - US government, foreign governments, private researchers, and commercial companies needing neutron irradiation services. There are three basic types of test configurations in the ATR. The simplest configuration is the sealed static capsule, which places the capsule in direct contact with the primary coolant. The next level of experiment complexity is an instrumented lead experiment, which allows for active control of experiment conditions during the irradiation. The most complex experiment is the pressurized water loop, in which the test sample can be subjected to the exact environment of a pressurized water reactor. For future research, some ATR modifications and enhancements are currently planned. This paper provides more details on some of the ATR capabilities, key design features, experiments, and future plans.

AN IN-SITU YOUNG'S MODULUS MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS USING TIME-FREQUENCY ANALYSIS

  • Choi, Young-Chul;Yoon, Doo-Byung;Park, Jin-Ho;Kwon, Hyun-Sang
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.41 no.3
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    • pp.327-334
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    • 2009
  • Elastic wave is one of the most useful tools for non-destructive tests in nuclear power plants. Since the elastic properties are indispensable for analyzing the behaviors of elastic waves, they should be predetermined within an acceptable accuracy. Nuclear power plants are exposed to harsh environmental conditions and hence the structures are degraded. It means that the Young's modulus becomes unreliable and in-situ measurement of Young's modulus is required from an engineering point of view. Young's modulus is estimated from the group velocity of propagating waves. Because the flexural wave of a plate is inherently dispersive, the group velocity is not clearly evaluated in temporal signal analysis. In order to overcome such ambiguity in estimation of group velocity, Wigner-Ville distribution as the time-frequency analysis technique was proposed and utilized. To verify the proposed method, experiments for steel and acryl plates were performed with accelerometers. The results show good estimation of the Young's modulus of two plates.

An autonomous control framework for advanced reactors

  • Wood, Richard T.;Upadhyaya, Belle R.;Floyd, Dan C.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.49 no.5
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    • pp.896-904
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    • 2017
  • Several Generation IV nuclear reactor concepts have goals for optimizing investment recovery through phased introduction of multiple units on a common site with shared facilities and/or reconfigurable energy conversion systems. Additionally, small modular reactors are suitable for remote deployment to support highly localized microgrids in isolated, underdeveloped regions. The long-term economic viability of these advanced reactor plants depends on significant reductions in plant operations and maintenance costs. To accomplish these goals, intelligent control and diagnostic capabilities are needed to provide nearly autonomous operations with anticipatory maintenance. A nearly autonomous control system should enable automatic operation of a nuclear power plant while adapting to equipment faults and other upsets. It needs to have many intelligent capabilities, such as diagnosis, simulation, analysis, planning, reconfigurability, self-validation, and decision. These capabilities have been the subject of research for many years, but an autonomous control system for nuclear power generation remains as-yet an unrealized goal. This article describes a functional framework for intelligent, autonomous control that can facilitate the integration of control, diagnostic, and decision-making capabilities to satisfy the operational and performance goals of power plants based on multimodular advanced reactors.

Performance evaluation of the Floating Absorber for Safety at Transient (FAST) in the innovative Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (iSFR) under a single control rod withdrawal accident

  • Lee, Seongmin;Jeong, Yong Hoon
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.52 no.6
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    • pp.1110-1119
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    • 2020
  • The Floating Absorber for Safety at Transient (FAST) is a safety device used in the innovative Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (iSFR). The FAST insert negative reactivity under transient or accident conditions. However, behavior of the FAST is still unclear under transient conditions. Therefore, the existing Floating Absorber for Safety at Transient Analysis Code (FASTAC) is improved to analyze the FAST movement by considering the reactivity and temperature distribution within the reactor core. The current FAST system is simulated under a single control rod withdrawal accident condition. In this investigation, the reactor thermal power does not return to its initial thermal power even if the FAST inserts negative reactivity. Only a 9 K of coolant temperature margin, in the hottest fuel assembly at EOL, can lead to unnecessary insertion of the negative reactivity. On the other hand, the FASTs cannot contribute to controlling the reactivity when normalized radial power is less than 0.889 at BOL and 0.972 at EOL. These simulation results suggest that the current FAST design needs to be optimized depending on its installed location. Meanwhile, the FAST system keeps the fuel, cladding and coolant temperatures below their limit temperatures with given conditions.

A Preliminary Study for the Implementation of General Accident Management Strategies

  • Yang, Soo-Hyung;Kim, Soo-Hyung;Jeong, Young-Hoon;Chang, Soon-Heung
    • Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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    • 1997.10a
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    • pp.695-700
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    • 1997
  • To enhance the safety of nuclear power plants, implementation of accident management has been suggested as one of most important programs. Specially, accident management strategies are suggested as one of key elements considered in development of the accident management program. In this study, generally applicable accident management strategies to domestic nuclear power plants are identified through reviewing several accident management programs for the other countries and considering domestic conditions. Identified strategies are as follows; 1) Injection into the Reactor Coolant System, 2) Depressurize the Reactor Coolant System, 3) Depressurize the Steam Generator, 4) Injection into the Steam Generator, 5) Injection into the Containment, 6) Spray into the Containment, 7) Control Hydrogen in the Containment. In addition, the systems and instrumentation necessary for the implementation of .each strategy are also investigated.

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Application of CUPID for subchannel-scale thermal-hydraulic analysis of pressurized water reactor core under single-phase conditions

  • Yoon, Seok Jong;Kim, Seul Been;Park, Goon Cherl;Yoon, Han Young;Cho, Hyoung Kyu
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.50 no.1
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    • pp.54-67
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    • 2018
  • There have been recent efforts to establish methods for high-fidelity and multi-physics simulation with coupled thermal-hydraulic (T/H) and neutronics codes for the entire core of a light water reactor under accident conditions. Considering the computing power necessary for a pin-by-pin analysis of the entire core, subchannel-scale T/H analysis is considered appropriate to achieve acceptable accuracy in an optimal computational time. In the present study, the applicability of in-house code CUPID of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute was extended to the subchannel-scale T/H analysis. CUPID is a component-scale T/H analysis code, which uses three-dimensional two-fluid models with various closure models and incorporates a highly parallelized numerical solver. In this study, key models required for a subchannel-scale T/H analysis were implemented in CUPID. Afterward, the code was validated against four subchannel experiments under unheated and heated single-phase incompressible flow conditions. Thereafter, a subchannel-scale T/H analysis of the entire core for an Advanced Power Reactor 1400 reactor core was carried out. For the high-fidelity simulation, detailed geometrical features and individual rod power distributions were considered in this demonstration. In this study, CUPID shows its capability of reproducing key phenomena in a subchannel and dealing with the subchannel-scale whole core T/H analysis.