• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.1022-1028
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• 2024

A neutronics study of a supercritical CO₂-cooled fast reactor core for nuclear propulsion has been performed in this work. The thermal power of the reactor core is 30 MWth and a ceramic UO₂ fuel can be used to achieve a 20-year lifetime without refueling. In order to make a compact core with inherent safety features, the drum-type reactivity control system and folding-type shutdown system are adopted. In addition, we suggest a cold shutdown system using gadolinium as a spectral shift absorber (SSA) against flooding. Although there is a penalty of U-235 enrichment for the core embedded with the cold shutdown system, it effectively mitigates the increment of reactivity at the flooding of seawater. In this study, the neutronics analyses have been performed by using the continuous energy Monte Carlo Serpent 2 code with the evaluated nuclear data file ENDF/B-VII.1 Library. The supercritical CO₂-cooled fast reactor core is characterized in view of important safety parameters such as the reactivity worth of reactivity control systems, fuel temperature coefficient (FTC), coolant temperature coefficient (CTC), and coolant temperature-density coefficient (CTDC). We can say that the suggested core has inherent safety features and enough flexibility for load-following operation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.1271-1272
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.05a
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• pp.551-556
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• 1997

A present study addresses a loss-of-RHR event as an initiating event under specific low power or shutdown conditions. Two typical plant configurations, cold leg opening case with water-filled steam generators and pressurizer opening case with emptied steam generators, were evaluated using the RELAP5/ MOD3.2 code. The calculation was compared with the experiment conducted at ROSA-IV/LSTF in Japan. As a result, the code was capable of simulating the system transient behavior following the event. Especially, thermal hydraulic transport processes including non-condensable gas behavior were reasonably predicted with an appropriate time step and CPU time. However, there were some code deficiencies such as too large system mass errors and severe flow oscillations in core region.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.68-79
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• 1999

The YGN Units 3&4 plant conditions during shutdown operation were reviewed to identify the possible event scenarios following the loss of shutdown cooling (SDC) event. For the five cases of typical reactor coolant system (RCS) configurations under the worst event sequence, such as unavailable secondary cooling and no RCS inventory makeup, the thermal hydraulic analyses were performed using the RELAP5/MOD3.2 code to investigate the plant behavior following the event. The thermal hydraulic analyses include the estimation of time to boil, time to core uncovery, and time to core heat up to determine the containment closure time to prevent the uncontrolled release of fission products to atmosphere. The result indicates that the containment closure is recommended to be achieved within 42 minutes after the loss of SDC for the steam generator (SG) inlet plenum manway open case or the large cold leg open case under the worst event sequence. The containment closure time is significantly dependent on the elevation and size of the opening and the SG secondary water level condition. It is also found that the containment closure needs to be initiated before the boiling time to ensure the survivability of the workers in the containment. These results will provide useful information to operators to cope with the loss of SDC event.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.115-120
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• 2020

From 2009 when the CNS facility was installed, the number of reactor failures due to abnormal CNS facility system has increased significantly. Of the total of 19 nuclear reactor shutdowns over the six years from 2009 to 2019, there were 10 nuclear reactor shutdowns associated with the CNS facility, which are very numerous. Therefore, this report intends to analyze the history of nuclear reactor shutdowns due to CNS facility system failure in detail, and to present the root cause and solution to problems. As a result of FMEA implementation of CNS facility system, a total of 76 SPVs were selected. In addition, 10 cases of reactor shutdown history due to CNS facility system abnormalities were analyzed in detailed, and improvement plans for solving the root cause and problem were suggested for each trip history. The results of this study are expected to be able to operate the domestic research reactor and CNS facilities more stably by providing effective measures to prevent recurrence of CNS facilities and reactor trips.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.44-50
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• 2011

Turbulent mixing of hot and cold coolants is one of the possible causes of high cycle thermal fatigue in piping systems of nuclear power plants. A typical situation for such mixing appears in turbulent flow through a T-junction. Since the high cycle thermal fatigue caused by thermal striping was not considered in the piping fatigue design in several nuclear power plants, it is very important to evaluate the effect of thermal striping on the integrity of mixing tees. In the present work, before conducting detailed evaluation, three thermal striping evaluation methodology suggested by EPRI, JSME and NESC are analyzed. Then, a by-pass pipe connected to the shutdown cooling system heat exchanger is investigated by using these evaluation methodology. Consequently, the resulting thermal stresses and the fatigue life of the mixing tee are reviewed and compared to each other. Futhermore, the limitation of each methodology are also presented in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.104-104
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• 2015

Due to the demand of the cold neutron flux in the neutron science and beam utilization technology, the cold neutron source (CNS) has been constructed and operating in the nuclear research reactor all over the world. The majority of the heat load removal scheme in the CNS is two-phase thermosiphon using the liquid hydrogen as a moderator. The CNS moderates thermal neutrons through a cryogenic moderator, liquid hydrogen, into cold neutrons with the generation of the nuclear heat load. The liquid hydrogen in a moderator cell is evaporated for the removal of the generated heat load from the neutron moderation and flows upward into a heat exchanger, where the hydrogen gas is liquefied by the cryogenic helium gas supplied from a helium refrigeration system. The liquefied hydrogen flows down to the moderator cell. To keep the required liquid hydrogen stable in the moderator cell, the CNS consists of an in-pool assembly (IPA) connected with the hydrogen system to handle the required hydrogen gas, the vacuum system to create the thermal insulation, and the helium refrigeration system to provide the cooling capacity. If one of systems is running out of order, the operating research reactor shall be tripped because the integrity of the CNS-IPA is not secured under the full power operation of the reactor. To prevent unscheduled reactor shutdown during a long time because the research reactor has been operating with the multi-purposes, the introduction of the standby cooling system (STS) can be a solution. In this presentation, the design considerations are considered how to design the STS satisfied with the following objectives: (a) to keep the moderator cell less than 350 K during the full power operation of the reactor under loss of the vacuum, loss of the cooling power, loss of common electrical power, or loss of instrument air cases; (b) to circulate smoothly helium gas in the STS circulation loop; (c) to re-start-up the reactor within 1 hour after its trip to avoid the Xenon build-up because more than certain concentration of Xenon makes that the reactor cannot start-up again; (d) to minimize the possibility of the hydrogen-oxygen reaction in the hydrogen boundary.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05b
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• pp.745-750
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• 1996

An analysis of a loss of residual heat removal system (RHRS) event during midloop operation after reactor shutdown was performed using the RELAP5/MOD3 thermal-hydraulic computer code. The experimental data of a 5% cold leg break test conducted at the ROSA-IV Large Scale Test Facility (LSTF) to simulate a main coolant pump shaft seal removal event during midloop operation of a Westinghouse-type PWR were used in the analysis. The predicted core boiling time and the peak primary system pressure showed good agreements with the measured data. Some differences between the calculational results and the experimental results were, however, found in areas of the timing of loop seal clearing and the temperature distribution in a pressurizer. Other calculational problems identified were discussed as well.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.328-333
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• 1996

Boric acid concentrations of the refueling water storage tank (RWST) and the accumulators for Ulchin 1&2 (UCN 1&2) are increased to meet the post loss of coolant accident (post-LOCA) shutdown requirement for the extended fuel cycles from 12 months to 18 months. To maintain long term cooling (LTC) capability following a LOCA, the switchover tine is examined using BORON code to prevent the boron precipitation in the reactor core with the increased boron concentrations. The analysis results show that, at 8 hours after the initiation of LOCA. the emergency core noting system (ECCS) should be manually realigned to the simultaneous recirculation mode from the cold leg recirculation mode.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2012

During a reactor normal operation, two parallel 50% capacity cooling pumps circulate primary coolant to remove the fission reaction heat of the reactor through heat exchangers cold by a cooling tower. When one pump is failure, the other pump shall continuously circulate the coolant to remove the residual heat generated by the fuels loaded in the reactor after reactor shutdown. It is necessary to estimate how much flow rate will be supplied to remove the residual heat. We carried out a flow network analysis for the parallel primary pumps based on the piping network of the primary cooling system in HANARO. As result, it is estimated that the flow rate of one pump increased about 1.33 times the rated flow of one pump and was maintained within the limit of the cavitation critical flow.