• Title/Summary/Keyword: CANDU

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Finite Element Analysis of Hydrogen Concentration for Blister Growth Estimation of CANDU Pressure Tube (CANDU 압력관의 블리스터 성장 예측을 위한 유한요소 수소 확산 해석)

  • Huh, Nam-Su;Kim, Yun-Jae;Kim, Young-Jin;Kim, Young-Seok;Cheong, Yong-Moo
    • Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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    • v.28 no.2
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    • pp.189-195
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    • 2004
  • The pressure tubes, which contain high temperature heavy water and fuel, are within the core of a CANDU nuclear reactor, and are thus subjected to high stresses, temperature gradient, and neutron flux. Further, it is well known that pressure tubes of cold-worked Zr-2.5Nb materials result in hydrogen diffusion, which create fully-hydrided regions (frequently called Blister). Thus a proper investigation of hydrogen diffusion within zirconium-alloy nuclear components, such as CANDU pressure tube and fuel channels is essential to predict the structural integrity of these components. In this respect, this paper presents numerical investigation of hydrogen diffusion to quantify the hydrogen concentration fur blister growth of CANDU pressure tube. For this purpose, coupled temperature-hydrogen diffusion analyses are performed by means of two-dimensional finite element analysis. Comparison of predicted temperature field and blister with published test data shows good agreement.

Neutronic study of utilization of discrete thorium-uranium fuel pins in CANDU-6 reactor

  • Deng, Nianbiao;Yu, Tao;Xie, Jinsen;Chen, Zhenping;Xie, Qin;Zhao, Pengcheng;Liu, Zijing;Zeng, Wenjie
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.51 no.2
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    • pp.377-383
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    • 2019
  • Targeting at simulating the application of thorium-uranium (TU) fuel in the CANDU-6 reactor, this paper analyzes the process using the code DRAGON/DONJON where the discrete TU fuel pins are applied in the CANDU-6 reactor under the time-average equilibrium refueling. The results show that the coolant void reactivity of the assembly analyzed in this paper is lower than that of 37-element bundle cell with natural uranium and 37-element bundle cell with mixed TU fuel pins; that the max time-average channel/bundle power of the core meets the limits - less than 6700kW/860 kW; that the fuel conversion ratio is higher than that of the CANDU-6 reactor with natural uranium; and that the exit burnup increases to 13400 MWd/tU. Thus, the simulation in this paper with the fuel in the 37-element bundle cell using discrete TU fuel pins can be considered to be applied in CANDU-6 reactor with adequate modifications of the core structure and operating modes.

Determination of burnup limit for CANDU 6 fuel using Monte-Carlo method

  • Lee, Eun-ki
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.3
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    • pp.901-910
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    • 2021
  • KHNP recently has obtained the approval for the commercialization of the modified 37-element (or 37 M) fuel bundle and now is loading the 37 M fuel bundles in CANDU-6 reactors in KOREA. One of the main issues for approval was the burnup limit. Due to CANDU design and neutronic characteristics, there was no specific burnup restriction of a fuel bundle. The absence of a burnup limit does not mean that a fuel bundle can stay in the CANDU reactor without a time limit. However, the regulator requested traditional design values as well as the burnup limit reflecting the computer code uncertainty. The method for the PWR burnup limit was not applied to the CANDU fuel bundle. Since there was no approved methodology to build the burnup limit with uncertainties, KHNP introduced a Monte-Carlo method coupled with a 95/95 approach to determine the conservative burnup limit from the viewpoint of the centerline temperature, internal pressure, strain measurement deviation. Moreover, to consider the uncertainties of various computing models, a converted power uncertainty was introduced. This paper presents the methodology and puts forward the limits on burnup, evaluated for each of the existing and modified fuel bundles, in consideration of the pressure tube aging condition.

Thermal Analysis of a Retrievable CANDU Spent Fuel Disposal Tunnel (회수 가능 CANDU 사용후핵연료 처분터널에 대한 열 해석)

  • Cha, Jeong-Hun;Lee, Jong-Youl;Choi, Heui-Joo;Cho, Dong-Keun;Kim, Sang-Nyung;Youn, Bum-Soo;Ji, Joon-Suk
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.119-128
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    • 2008
  • Thermal assessment of a new CANDU spent fuel disposal system, which improves the retrievability of the spent fuel and enhances the densification factor compared with the Korean Reference disposal System, is carried out in this study. The canisters for CANDU spent fuels are stored for long term and cooled by natural convection in the proposed disposal system for the retrievability. The steady state thermal analyses for proposed CANDU disposal system are carried out with the ANSYS 10.0 CFX code. The thermal analyses are performed through two steps. At the first step, the sensitivity of the disposal tunnel spacing is analysed. The differences of maximum temperatures by several tunnel spacings are calculated at three points in the disposal tunnel. The result shows that the differences of the temperature at the three points are almost negligible because 99% of the decay heat is removed by natural convection. At the second procedure, 60m tunnel spacing with a ventilation system instead of natural convection is considered. The result is applied to the calculation of the canister surface temperature in disposal tunnel as boundary conditions. Consequently, the average and the maximum surface temperature of disposal canisters are $79.9^{\circ}C$ and $119^{\circ}C$, respectively. The inner maximum temperature of a basket in the disposal canister is calculated as $140.9^{\circ}C$. The maximum temperature of the basket meets the thermal requirement for the CANDU spent fuel cladding.

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