• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권1호
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• pp.72-86
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• 2016

A steam explosion may occur during a severe accident, when the molten core comes into contact with water. The pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor ex-vessel steam explosion study, which was carried out with the multicomponent three-dimensional Eulerian fuel-coolant interaction code under the conditions of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Steam Explosion Resolution for Nuclear Applications project reactor exercise, is presented and discussed. In reactor calculations, the largest uncertainties in the prediction of the steam explosion strength are expected to be caused by the large uncertainties related to the jet breakup. To obtain some insight into these uncertainties, premixing simulations were performed with both available jet breakup models, i.e., the global and the local models. The simulations revealed that weaker explosions are predicted by the local model, compared to the global model, due to the predicted smaller melt droplet size, resulting in increased melt solidification and increased void buildup, both reducing the explosion strength. Despite the lower active melt mass predicted for the pressurized water reactor case, pressure loads at the cavity walls are typically higher than that for the boiling water reactor case. This is because of the significantly larger boiling water reactor cavity, where the explosion pressure wave originating from the premixture in the center of the cavity has already been significantly weakened on reaching the distant cavity wall.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1998년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.437-442
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• 1998

Film boiling is the heat transfer mechanism that can occurs when large temperature differences exist between a cold liquid and hot material. In the nuclear reactor safety analysis, film boiling has become an important issue in recent years. During severe accident, hot molten corium fall into relatively cool water, and fragment into spheres or sphere-like particles. If the steam explosion is triggered, the thermal energy of corium is converted into the mechanical energy that can threaten the integrity of reactor vessel or reactor cavity. One of the important concerns in the heat transfer analysis during pre-mixing stage is the film boiling heat transfer between the corium and water/steam two-phase flow. Until now, considerable works on film boiling heat been performed. However, there is no available correlation adequate for severe accident analysis. In this study, boiling heat transfer correlations have been developed, and their applicable ranges heat been enlarged and their prediction accuracy has been enhanced.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제43권3호
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• pp.217-242
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• 2011

A variety of Generation III/III+ water-cooled reactor designs featuring enhanced safety and improved economics are being proposed by nuclear power industries around the world in efforts to solve the future energy supply shortfall. Thermal-hydraulics is recognized as a key scientific subject in the development of innovative reactor systems. Phase change by boiling and condensation in the reverse process is a highly efficient heat transport mechanism that accommodates large heat fluxes with relatively small driving temperature differences. This mode of heat transfer is encountered in a wide spectrum of nuclear systems,and thus it is necessary to determine the thermal limit of water-cooled nuclear energy conversion in terms of economic and safety. Such applications are being advanced with the introduction of new technologies such as nanotechnology. Here, we investigated newly-introduced nanotechnologies relevant to boiling and condensation in general engineering applications. We also evaluated the potential linkage between such new advancements and nuclear applications in terms of advanced nuclear thermal-hydraulics.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권6호
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• pp.1338-1348
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• 2016

A novel fully passive small modular superheated water reactor (SWR) for underwater deployment is designed to produce 160 MWe with steam at $500^{\circ}C$ to increase the thermodynamic efficiency compared with standard light water reactors. The SWR design is based on a conceptual 400-MWe integral SWR using the internally and externally cooled annular fuel (IXAF). The coolant boils in the external channels throughout the core to approximately the same quality as a conventional boiling water reactor and then the steam, instead of exiting the reactor pressure vessel, turns around and flows downward in the central channel of some IXAF fuel rods within each assembly and then flows upward through the rest of the IXAF pins in the assembly and exits the reactor pressure vessel as superheated steam. In this study, new cladding material to withstand high temperature steam in addition to the fuel mechanical and safety behavior is investigated. The steam temperature was found to depend on the thermal and mechanical characteristics of the fuel. The SWR showed a very different transient behavior compared with a boiling water reactor. The inter-play between the inner and outer channels of the IXAF was mainly beneficial except in the case of sudden reactivity insertion transients where additional control consideration is required.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.277-289
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• 1981

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권6호
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• pp.1303-1314
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• 2016

This work examines the most viable nuclear technology options for future underwater designs that would meet high safety standards as well as good economic potential, for construction in the 2030-2040 timeframe. The top five concepts selected from a survey of 13 nuclear technologies were compared to a small modular pressurized water reactor (PWR) designed with a conventional layout. In order of smallest to largest primary system size where the reactor and all safety systems are contained, the top five designs were: (1) a lead-bismuth fast reactor based on the Russian SVBR-100; (2) a novel organic cooled reactor; (3) an innovative superheated water reactor; (4) a boiling water reactor based on Toshiba's LSBWR; and (5) an integral PWR featuring compact steam generators. A similar study on potential attractive power cycles was also performed. A condensing and recompression supercritical $CO_2$ cycle and a compact steam Rankine cycle were designed. It was found that the hull size required by the reactor, safety systems and power cycle can be significantly reduced (50-80%) with the top five designs compared to the conventional PWR. Based on the qualitative economic consideration, the organic cooled reactor and boiling water reactor designs are expected to be the most cost effective options.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 2001년도 춘계학술발표회요약집
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• pp.242-242
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• 2001

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권7호
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• pp.1417-1428
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• 2020

The design of a nuclear reactor core requires basic thermal-hydraulic information concerning the heat transfer regime at which onset of nucleate boiling (ONB) will occur, the pressure drop and flow rate through the reactor core, the temperature and power distributions in the reactor core, the departure from nucleate boiling (DNB), the condition for onset of flow instability (OFI), in addition to, the critical velocity beyond which the fuel elements will collapse. These values depend on coolant velocity, fuel element geometry, inlet temperature, flow direction and water column above the top of the reactor core. Enough safety margins to ONB, DNB and OFI must-emphasized. A heat transfer package is used for calculating convection heat transfer coefficient in single phase turbulent, transition and laminar regimes. The main objective of this paper is to study the possibility of power upgrading of WWR-S research reactor from 2 to 10 MW_th. This study presents a one-dimensional mathematical model (axial direction) for steady-state thermal-hydraulic design and analysis of the upgraded WWR-S reactor in which two types of plate fuel elements are employed. FOR-CONV computer program is developed for the needs of the power upgrading of WWR-S reactor up to 10 MW_th.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권11호
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• pp.2415-2421
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• 2020

The axial heterogeneous void distribution in a fuel channel is a relevant and important issue during nuclear reactor analysis for LWR, especially for boiling water channel-type reactors. Variation of the coolant density in fuel channel has an effect on the neutron spectrum that will in turn have an impact on the values of absolute reactivity, the void reactivity coefficient, and the fuel isotopic compositions during irradiation. This effect is referring to as the history effect in light water reactor calculations. As the void reactivity effect is positive in RBMK type reactors, the underestimation of water density heterogeneity in 3D reactor core numerical calculations could cause an uncertainty during assessment of safe operation of nuclear reactor. Thus, this issue is analysed with different cross-section libraries which were generated with WIMS8 code at different reference water densities. The libraries were applied in single fuel model of the nodal code of QUABOX-CUBBOX/HYCA. The thermohydraulic part of HYCA allowed to simulate axial water distribution along fuel assembly model and to estimate water density history effect for RBMK type fuel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권2호
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• pp.434-441
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• 2017

Containment venting is one of several essential measures to protect the integrity of the final barrier of a nuclear reactor during severe accidents, by which the uncontrollable release of fission products can be avoided. The authors seek to develop an optimization approach to venting operations, from a simulation-based perspective, using an integrated severe accident code, THALES2/KICHE. The effectiveness of the containment-venting strategies needs to be verified via numerical simulations based on various settings of the venting conditions. The number of iterations, however, needs to be controlled to avoid cumbersome computational burden of integrated codes. Bayesian optimization is an efficient global optimization approach. By using a Gaussian process regression, a surrogate model of the "black-box" code is constructed. It can be updated simultaneously whenever new simulation results are acquired. With predictions via the surrogate model, upcoming locations of the most probable optimum can be revealed. The sampling procedure is adaptive. Compared with the case of pure random searches, the number of code queries is largely reduced for the optimum finding. One typical severe accident scenario of a boiling water reactor is chosen as an example. The research demonstrates the applicability of the Bayesian optimization approach to the design and establishment of containment-venting strategies during severe accidents.