• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.2048-2054
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• 2022

The coolant temperature feedback coefficient is an important parameter of reactor core power control system. To study the coolant temperature feedback coefficient influence on the core power control system of small PWR, the core power control system is built with the nonlinear model and fuzzy control theory. Then, the uncertainty quantification method of reactor core parameters is established based on the Latin hypercube sampling method and the Bootstrap method. Finally, under the conditions of reactivity step perturbation and coolant inlet temperature step perturbation, uncertainty analysis for two cases is carried out. The result shows that with fuzzy controller and fuzzy PID controller, the uncertainty of the coolant temperature feedback coefficient affects the core power control system, and the maximum uncertainties of core relative power, coolant temperature deviation, fuel temperature deviation and total reactivity are acceptable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2021

The analysis of the fluid flow characteristics in reactor pressure vessel is an important part of the hydraulic design of nuclear power plant, which is related to the structure design of reactor internals, the flow distribution at core inlet and the safety of nuclear power plant. The flow distribution and mixing characteristics in the pressurized reactor vessel for the 1000MWe advanced pressurized water reactor is analyzed by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method in this study. The geometry model of the full-scaled reactor vessel is built, which includes the cold and hot legs, downcomer, lower plenum, core, upper plenum, top plenum, and is verified with some parameters in DCD. Under normal condition, it is found that the flow skirt, core plate holes and outlet pipe cause pressure loss. The maximum and minimum flow coefficient is 1.028 and 0.961 respectively, and the standard deviation is 0.019. Compared with other reactor type, it shows relatively uniform of the flow distribution at the core inlet. The coolant mixing coefficient is investigated with adding additional variables, showing that mass transfer of coolant occurs near the interface. The coolant mainly distributes in the 90° area of the corresponding core inlet, and mixes at the interface with the coolant from the adjacent cold leg. 0.1% of corresponding coolant is still distributed at the inlet of the outer-ring components, indicating wide range of mixing coefficient distribution.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.2075-2080
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• 2013

A Coolant core for Range Extender engine has been developed using CFD technique. Coolant by-pass has been added to the improved model to reduce temperature near and between exhaust valve. Due to the increased coolant flow-rate both around the second cylinder block and between exhaust valves, improved model shows no significant stagnant flow compared with base model. Finally, the improved model shows improved heat transfer coefficients near exhaust valves, and 5% reduced pressure-drop through the coolant core. Reduced pressure-drop may increase the fuel efficiency by reducing the load of a coolant pump.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.1412-1420
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• 2018

An experiment was performed using the large-scale test facility (LSTF), which simulated a 1% vessel upper head small-break loss-of-coolant accident with an accident management (AM) measure under an assumption of total-failure of high-pressure injection (HPI) system in a pressurized water reactor (PWR). In the LSTF test, liquid level in the upper head affected break flow rate. Coolant was manually injected from the HPI system into cold legs as the AM measure when the maximum core exit temperature reached 623 K. The cladding surface temperature largely increased due to late and slow response of the core exit thermocouples. The AM measure was confirmed to be effective for the core cooling. The RELAP5/MOD3.3 code indicated insufficient prediction of primary coolant distribution. The author conducted uncertainty analysis for the LSTF test employing created phenomena identification and ranking table for each component. The author clarified that peak cladding temperature was largely dependent on the combination of multiple uncertain parameters within the defined uncertain ranges.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.434-442
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• 2015

The advanced passive pressurized water reactor (PWR) is being constructed in China and the passive residual heat removal (PRHR) system was designed to remove the decay heat. During accident scenarios with increase of heat removal from the primary coolant system, the actuation of the PRHR will enhance the cooldown of the primary coolant system. There is a risk of power excursion during the cooldown of the primary coolant system. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the thermal hydraulic behavior of the reactor coolant system (RCS) at this condition. The advanced passive PWR model, including major components in the RCS, is built by SCDAP/RELAP5 code. The thermal hydraulic behavior of the core is studied for two typical accident sequences with PRHR actuation to investigate the core cooling capability with conservative assumptions, a main steam line break (MSLB) event and inadvertent opening of a steam generator (SG) safety valve event. The results show that the core is ultimately shut down by the boric acid solution delivered by Core Makeup Tank (CMT) injections. The effects of CMT boric acid concentration and the activation delay time on accident consequences are analyzed for MSLB, which shows that there is no consequential damage to the fuel or reactor coolant system in the selected conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2438-2446
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• 2023

To cool down a nuclear reactor core and prevent the fuel damage without a pump-driven active component during any anticipated accident, the passive emergency core cooling system (PECCS) was designed and adopted in an advanced light water reactor, i-POWER. In this study, for a validation of the cooling capability of PECCS, thermal-hydraulic integral effect tests were performed with the ATLAS facility by simulating intermediate and small break loss-of-coolant accidents (IBLOCA and SBLOCA). The test result showed that PECCS could effectively depressurize the reactor coolant system by supplying the safety injection water from the safety injection tanks (SITs). The result pointed out that the safety injection from IRWST should have been activated earlier to inhibit the excessive core heat-up. The sequence of the PECCS injection and the major thermal hydraulic transient during the SBLOCA transient was similar to the result of the IBLOCA test with the equivalent PECCS condition. The test data can be used to evaluate the capability of thermal hydraulic safety analysis codes in predicting IBLOCA and SBLOCA transients under an operation of passive safety system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.129-138
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• 2022

A new method for injecting cooling water into the Korean research reactor (KRR) in the event of beam tube rupture is proposed in this paper. Moreover, the research evaluates the risk to the reactor core in terms of core damage frequency (CDF). The proposed method maintains the cooling water in the chimney at a certain level in the tank to prevent nuclear fuel damage solely by gravitational coolant feeding from the emergency water supply system (EWSS). This technique does not require sump recirculation operations described in the current procedure for resolving beam tube accidents. The reduction in the risk to the core in the event of beam tube rupture that can be achieved by the proposed change in the cooling water injection design is quantified as follows. 1) The total CDF of the KRR for the proposed design change is approximately 4.17E-06/yr, which is 8.4% lower than the CDF of the current design (4.55E-06/yr). 2) The CDF for beam tube rupture is 7.10E-08/yr, which represents an 84.1% decrease compared with that of the current design (4.49E-07/yr). In addition to this quantitative reduction in risk, the modified cooling water injection design maintains a supply of pure coolant to the EWSS tank. This means that the reactor does not require decontamination after an accident. Thermal hydraulic analysis proves that the water level in the reactor pool does not cause damage to the nuclear fuel cladding after beam tube rupture. This is because the amount of water in the chimney can be regulated by the EWSS function. The EWSS supplies emergency water to the reactor core to compensate for the evaporation of coolant in the core, thus allowing water to cover the fuel assemblies in the reactor core over a sufficient amount of time.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.10
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• pp.2204-2220
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• 2020

An open-pool type research reactor is designed and operated considering the accessibility around the pool top area to enhance the reactor utilization. The reactor structure assembly is placed at the bottom of the pool and filled with water as a primary coolant for the core cooling and radiation shielding. Most radioactive materials are generated from the fuel assemblies in the reactor core and circulated with the primary coolant. If the primary coolant goes up to the pool surface, the radiation level increases around the working area near the top of the pool. Hence, the hot water layer is designed and formed at the upper part of the pool to suppress the rising of the primary coolant to the pool surface. The temperature gradient is established from the hot water layer to the primary coolant. As this temperature gradient suppresses the circulation of the primary coolant at the upper region of the pool, the radioactive primary coolant rising up directly to the pool surface is minimized. Water mixing between these layers is reduced because the hot water layer is formed above the primary coolant with a higher temperature. The radiation level above the pool surface area is maintained as low as reasonably achievable since the radioactive materials in the primary coolant are trapped under the hot water layer. The key to maintaining the stable hot water layer and keeping the radiation level low on the pool surface is to have a stable flow of the primary coolant. In the research reactor with a downward core flow, the primary coolant is dumped into the reactor pool and goes to the reactor core through the flow guide structure. Flow fields of the primary coolant at the lower region of the reactor pool are largely affected by the dumped primary coolant. Simple, circular, and duct type discharge headers are designed to control the flow fields and make the primary coolant flow stable in the reactor pool. In this research, flow fields of the primary coolant and hot water layer are numerically simulated in the reactor pool. The heat transfer rate, temperature, and velocity fields are taken into consideration to determine the formation of the stable hot water layer and primary coolant flow. The bulk Richardson number is used to evaluate the stability of the flow field. A duct type discharge header is finally chosen to dump the primary coolant into the reactor pool. The bulk Richardson number should be higher than 2.7 and the temperature of the hot water layer should be 1 ℃ higher than the temperature of the primary coolant to maintain the stability of the stratified thermal layer.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.186-195
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• 1997

When asymmetric thermal-hydraulic conditions occur between cold legs, the core inlet temperature will be nonuniform if the coolant is not mixed perfectly in the lower plenum. These uneven core inlet conditions may induce the change in core power distribution. Thus realistic prediction of thermal mixing is important in such abnormal conditions. In this study, reactor internals, which are scaled down as to conserve the flow area ratio, are set up in the model of KORI Unit 1 with the scaling factor of 1/710 by volume and coolant temperatures are measured beneath the lower core plate. Based on experimental results, the ability of COMMIX-1B code to simulate the coolant mixing phenomena in the lower plenum is estimated. The results show that complete mixing never occurs in any conditions and the mixing pattern is characterized according to the plant type.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.221-226
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• 2001

HANARO, 30MW of research reactor, was installed at the depth of 13m of open pool, The $90\%$ of primary coolant was designed to pass through the core and to remove the reaction heat of the core. The rest $10\%$, of the primary coolant was designed to bypass the core. And the reactor coolant through and bypass the core was inhaled at the top of chimney by the coolant pump to protect that the radiated gas was lifted to the top of reactor pool. But, the part of core bypass coolant was not inhaled by the reactor coolant pump and reached at the top of reactor pool by natural convection and increased the radiation level on the top of reactor pool. To reduce the radiation level by protecting the natural convection of the core bypass flow, the hot water layer (HWL, hereinafter) was installed with the depth of 1.2m from the top of reactor pool. As the HWL was normally operated, the radiation level was reduced to five percent ($5\%$) in comparing with that before the installation of the HWL. When HANARO was operated with higher temperature than the normal temperature of the HWL by operating the standby heater, it was found that the radiation level was more reduced than that before operation. To verify the reason, the heat loss of the HWL was calculated. It was confirmed through the results that the larger the temperature difference between the HWL and reactor hall was, the more the evaporation loss was increased. And it was verified that the radiation level above was reduced more safely by increasing the capacity of heater.