• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제38권1호
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• pp.45-60
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• 2006

Presently, the VHTGR (Very High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor) is considered the most attractive candidate for a GEN-IV reactor to produce hydrogen, which will be a key resource for future energy production. A new concept for a reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS), a critical safety feature in the VHTGR, is proposed in the present study. The proposed RCCS consists of passive water pool and active air cooling systems. These are employed to overcome the poor cooling capability of the air-cooled RCCS and the complex cavity structures of the water-cooled RCCS. In order to estimate the licensibility of the proposed design, its performance and integrity were tested experimentally with a reduced-scale mock-up facility, as well as with a separate-effect test facility (SET) for the 1/4 water pool of the RCCS-SNU to examine the heat transfer and pressure drop and code capability. This paper presents the test results for SET and validation of MARS-GCR, a system code for the safety analysis of a HTGR. In addition, CFX5.7, a computational fluid dynamics code, was also used for the code-to-code benchmark of MARS-GCR. From the present experimental and numerical studies, the efficacy of MARS-GCR in application to determining the optimal design of complicated systems such as a RCCS and evaluation of their feasibility has been validated.

• 한국초전도저온공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국초전도저온공학회 2003년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.171-175
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• 2003

The sub-cooled nitrogen cooling system at 65 K with GM cryo-cooler is developed for cooling down the DC reactor of 6.6 ㎸-200 A class HTS Fault Current Limiter(SFCL). The sub-cooled nitrogen cooling is more economic than saturated nitrogen cooling, because the length of HTS wire is reduced in the same capacity, as well as, more stable. The cooling system with the GM cryo-cooler installed on the cryostat is not only compact but also efficient for energy saving. In the nitrogen vessel, after evacuating with vacuum pump to saturated nitrogen at 65 K, sub-cooled nitrogen at 65 K is made by putting in gas helium to 1 atm. During the short circuit test occurring the fault current of 1000 A, the sub-cooled nitrogen cooled DC reactor for SFCL is kept the state of sub-cooled nitrogen at 65 K.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권1호
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• pp.357-373
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• 2022

The high-temperature gas-cooled reactor pebble-bed module project is the first commercial Generation-IV NPP(Nuclear Power Plant) in China. A new joint is used for the vertical support of RPV(Reactor Pressure Vessel). The steel corbel is integrally embedded into the reactor-cabin wall through eight asymmetrically arranged pre-stressed high-strength bolts, achieving the different path transmission of shear force and moment. The vertical monotonic loading test of two specimens is conducted. The results show that the failure mode of the joint is bolt fracture. There is no prominent yield stage in the whole loading process. The stress of bolts is linearly distributed along the height of corbel at initial loading. As the load increases, the height of neutral axis of bolts gradually decreases. The upper and lower edges of the wall opening contact the corbel plate to restrict the rotation of the corbel. During the loading, the pre-stress of some bolts decreases. The increase of the pre-stress strength ratio of bolts has no noticeable effect on the structure stiffness, but it reduces the ultimate bearing capacity of the joint. A simplified calculation model for the elastic stage of the joint is established, and the estimation results are in good agreement with the experimental results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권3호
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• pp.877-887
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• 2022

A new reactor concept is described that directly couples a supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂) power cycle with a CO₂-cooled, heavy water moderated pressure tube core. This configuration attains the simplification and economic potential of past direct-cycle sCO₂ concepts, while also providing safety and power density benefits by using the moderator as a heat sink for decay heat removal. A 200 MWe design is described that heavily leverages existing commercial nuclear technologies, including reactor and moderator systems from Canadian CANDU reactors and fuels and materials from UK Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs). Descriptions are provided of the power cycle, nuclear island systems, reactor core, and safety systems, and the results of safety analyses are shown illustrating the ability of the design to withstand large-break loss of coolant accidents. The resulting design attains high efficiency while employing considerably fewer systems than current light water reactors and advanced reactor technologies, illustrating its economic promise. Prospects for the design are discussed, including the ability to demonstrate its technologies in a small (~20 MWe) initial system, and avenues for further improvement of the design using advanced technologies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권6호
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• pp.587-594
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• 2005

In an effort to develop a thermal-hydraulic (TH) safety analysis code for Gas-cooled Reactors (GCRs), the MARS code, which was primarily developed for TH analysis of water reactor systems, has been extended here for application to GCRs. The modeling requirements of the system code were derived from a review of major processes and phenomena that are expected to occur during normal and accident conditions of GCRs. Models fur code improvement were then identified through a review of existing MARS code capability. Among these, the following priority models necessary fur the analysis of limiting high and low pressure conduction cooling events were evaluated and incorporated in MARS-GCR/V1 : 1) Helium (He) and Carbon Dioxide ($CO_2$) as main system fluids, 2) gas convection heat transfer, 3) radiation heat transfer, and 4) contact heat transfer models. Each model has been assessed using various conceptual problems for code-to-code benchmarks and it was demonstrated that MARS-GCR/V1 is capable of capturing the relevant phenomena. This paper describes the models implemented in MARS-GCR/V1 and their verification and validation results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제38권2호
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• pp.129-138
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• 2006

The Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) is one of the six reactor concepts selected within the framework of the Generation IV initiative and is the reference concept for the Commissariat $\grave{a}$ l'Energie Atomique $(CEA^1)$. Two reactor unit sizes have been considered: 600 MWth and 2400 MWth. As far as thermal-hydraulics is concerned, reactor decay heat removal (DHR) proves to be a major issue. The CEA has conducted exploratory design studies to address this issue and a reference solution for the 600MWth reactor has been recommended.

• 대한기계학회논문집
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.490-499
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• 1989

본 연구에서의 CO$_{2}$ 프로세스는 1차 루프인 원자로에서 유도되는 나트륨 과 2차 루프인 CO$_{2}$ 가스터빈 사이클로 구성하였고, CO$_{2}$ 임계점 부근에서 압축을 행하였다. 또한 최적의 사이클을 결정하기 위해 h-s 선도와 이에 대한 열역 학적, 칼로리로 유도하였다. 그리고 최적화를 위해 출력을 각각 300,600, 1000MWe로 선택하였고, 터빈 입구압은 150-350bar의 범위로 선택하였으며 이들로부터 열효율에 영향을 주는 각 설계변수의 특성을 연구 분석하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권7호
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• pp.2395-2407
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• 2022

The sodium-cooled fast reactor is among the innovative nuclear technologies selected in the framework of the development of Generation IV concepts, allowing the irradiation of uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuels (MOX). A fundamental step for the safety assessment of MOX-fuelled pins for fast reactor applications is the evaluation, by means of fuel performance codes, of the integral thermal-mechanical behaviour under irradiation, involving the fission gas behaviour and release in the fuel-cladding gap. This work is dedicated to the performance analysis of an inner-core fuel pin representative of the ASTRID sodium-cooled concept design, selected as case study for the benchmark between the GERMINAL and TRANSURANUS fuel performance codes. The focus is on fission gas-related mechanisms and integral outcomes as predicted by means of the SCIANTIX module (allowing the physics-based treatment of inert gas behaviour and release) coupled to both fuel performance codes. The benchmark activity involves the application of both GERMINAL and TRANSURANUS in their "pre-INSPYRE" versions, i.e., adopting the state-of-the-art recommended correlations available in the codes, compared with the "post-INSPYRE" code results, obtained by implementing novel models for MOX fuel properties and phenomena (SCIANTIX included) developed in the framework of the INSPYRE H2020 Project. The SCIANTIX modelling includes the consideration of burst releases of the fission gas stored at the grain boundaries occurring during power transients of shutdown and start-up, whose effect on a fast reactor fuel concept is analysed. A clear need to further extend and validate the SCIANTIX module for application to fast reactor MOX emerges from this work; nevertheless, the GERMINAL-TRANSURANUS benchmark on the ASTRID case study highlights the achieved code capabilities for fast reactor conditions and paves the way towards the proper application of fuel performance codes to safety evaluations on Generation IV reactor concepts.

• 한국막학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국막학회 2003년도 추계 총회 및 학술발표회
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• pp.25-33
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• 2003

원자력 발전의 고온 가스로(high temperature gas-cooled reactor, HTGR)의 냉각제로 사용되는 He가스의 폐열에너지를 이용하여 물을 분해해서 수소를 생산하는 “열화학적 수소제조 IS프로세스”에서의 분리막 기술의 응용에 대해 정리하였다. 고온 원자력 열에너지를 이용한 열화학적 수소 제조법은 실현 가능한 단계까지 왔다고 생각되며, 아직 연구 개발 과제가 많이 남아 있지만, 미래의 청정에너지 중의 하나인 수소를 대량 생산할 수 있는 가능성을 갖고 있다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권1호
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• pp.111-120
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• 2021

During the core disruptive accident (CDA) of sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), the molten fuel and steel are solidified into debris particles, which form debris bed in the lower plenum. When the boiling occurs inside debris bed, the flow of coolant and vapor makes the debris particles relocated and the bed flattened, which called debris bed relocation. Because the thickness of debris bed has great influence on the cooling ability of fuel debris in low plenum, it's very necessary to evaluate the transient changes of the shape and thickness in relocation behavior for CDA simulation analysis. To simulate relocation behavior, a large number of debris bed relocation experiments were carried out by improved bottom gas-injection experimental method in this paper. The effects of different experimental factors on the relocation process were studied from the experiments. The experimental data were also used to further evaluate a semi-empirical onset model for predicting relocation.