• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.268-279
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• 2018

The ALCYONE multidimensional fuel performance code codeveloped by the CEA, EDF, and AREVA NP within the PLEIADES software environment models the behavior of fuel rods during irradiation in commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs), power ramps in experimental reactors, or accidental conditions such as loss of coolant accidents or reactivity-initiated accidents (RIAs). As regards the latter case of transient in particular, ALCYONE is intended to predictively simulate the response of a fuel rod by taking account of mechanisms in a way that models the physics as closely as possible, encompassing all possible stages of the transient as well as various fuel/cladding material types and irradiation conditions of interest. On the way to complying with these objectives, ALCYONE development and validation shall include tests on $PWR-UO_2$ fuel rods with advanced claddings such as M5(R) under "low pressure-low temperature" or "high pressure-high temperature" water coolant conditions. This article first presents ALCYONE V1.4 RIA-related features and modeling. It especially focuses on recent developments dedicated on the one hand to nonsteady water heat and mass transport and on the other hand to the modeling of grain boundary cracking-induced fission gas release and swelling. This article then compares some simulations of RIA transients performed on $UO_2$-M5(R) fuel rods in flowing sodium or stagnant water coolant conditions to the relevant experimental results gained from tests performed in either the French CABRI or the Japanese NSRR nuclear transient reactor facilities. It shows in particular to what extent ALCYONE-starting from base irradiation conditions it itself computes-is currently able to handle both the first stage of the transient, namely the pellet-cladding mechanical interaction phase, and the second stage of the transient, should a boiling crisis occur. Areas of improvement are finally discussed with a view to simulating and analyzing further tests to be performed under prototypical PWR conditions within the CABRI International Program. M5(R) is a trademark or a registered trademark of AREVA NP in the USA or other countries.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.283-292
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• 2023

Spent nuclear fuel corresponds to high-level radioactive waste that has high decay heat and radioactivity. Accordingly, Spent nuclear fuel withdrawn from the reactor core is primarily stored and managed in a spent nuclear fuel pool in the nuclear power plant to reduce decay heat and radioactivity. In Korea, most nuclear power plant store all spent nuclear fuel in a spent nuclear fuel pool. For wet storage, there are no defense in depth different with reactor core. The study related to spent nuclear fuel pool accident should be carried out to ensure safety. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze previous study cases related to safety of spent nuclear fuel pool and accident cases to build foundational knowledge. The Objective of this study is to analyze study cases of safety assessment and cases for spent nuclear fuel pool accident. For analyzing study cases of safety assessment, possible phenomena when spent nuclear fuel pool accident occurring identified, Subsequently, study cases for safety assessment about each phenomena were investigated, and materials & methods and results for each study are analyzed. For analyzing cases for spent nuclear fuel pool accident, we analyzed accident cases caused by loss of cooling and loss of coolant in spent nuclear fuel pool. Subsequently, causes and change of water level and temperature by each accident case are analyzed. As a result of the analysis on study cases of spent nuclear fuel pool accident, the results of the study conducted by each research institute were vary depending on the computer code, materials & methods of experiment and major assumptions used in the study. As a result of analyzing cases for spent nuclear fuel pool accident, it was found that accident cases for loss of cooling is more than cases for loss of coolant accident. Even though the types of accident in spent nuclear fuel pool were similar, the specific causes were different by each accident case. All the accident cases analyzed did not lead to severe accidents, such as nuclear fuel being exposed to the air. The result of this study will be used as fundamental data for study on spent nuclear fuel pool accident that will be conducted in the future.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2002-2010
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• 2024

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has operated an integral effect test facility, the Advanced Thermal-Hydraulic Test Loop for Accident Simulation (ATLAS), with reference to the APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor 1400) for tests for transient and design basis accidents simulation. A test for a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) at the top of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) had been conducted at ATLAS to address the impact of the loss of safety injections (LSI) and to evaluate accident management (AM) actions during the postulated accident. The experimental data has been utilized to validate system analysis codes within a framework of the domestic standard problem program organized by KAERI in collaboration with Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety. In this study, the test has been analyzed by using thermal-hydraulic system analysis codes, MARS-KS 1.5 and TRACE 5.0 Patch 6, and a comparative analysis with experimental and calculation results has been performed. The main objective of this study is the investigation of the thermal-hydraulic phenomena during a small break LOCA at the RPV upper head with the LSI as well as the predictability of the system analysis codes after the AM actions during the test. The results from both codes reveal that overall physical behaviors during the accident are predicted by the codes, appropriately, including the excursion of the peak cladding temperature because of the LSI. It is also confirmed that the core integrity is maintained with the proposed AM action. Considering the break location, a sensitivity analysis for the nodalization of the upper head has been conducted. The sensitivity analysis indicates that the nodalization gave a significant impact on the analysis result. The result emphasizes the importance of the nodalization which should be performed with a consideration of the physical phenomena occurs during the transient.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.389-394
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• 2016

The operation method of nuclear power plants is currently changing to high burn-up and long period that can enhance economics and efficiency of the plant. Since nuclear plant operation environment has been becoming severe, the amount of absorbed hydrogen also has increased. Absorbed hydrogen can be fatal securing safety of nuclear fuel cladding in case of Loss of Coolant Accidents(LOCA). In order to examine the impact of hydride on high-temperature oxidation, high-temperature oxidation experiment was performed on normal Zry-4 cladding and on Zry-4 cladding where hydrogen is charged in air pressure steam atmosphere under the $950^{\circ}C$ and $1000^{\circ}C$. According to the results, while oxidation acceleration due to charged hydrogen was not observed prior to breakaway oxidation creation, oxidation began to accelerate in cladding where hydrogens charged as soon as the breakaway oxidation started. If so much hydrogen are charged in the cladding, equiaxial monoclinic phase to unstable of stress is formed and it is presumed that oxidation is accelerated because nearby stress caused a crack in equiaxial phase, and that makes corrosion resistance decline sharply.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.338-345
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• 2000

A model testing has been performed to investigate the flow characteristics of a vortex chamber, which plays a role of a flow switch and passively controls the discharge flow rate. This method of passive flow control is a matter of concern in the design of advanced nuclear reactor systems as an alternative to the active flow control to provide emergency water to the reactor core in case of postulated accidents like LOCA (Loss-Of-Coolant Accident). By changing the inflow direction in the vortex chamber and varying the flow resistance inside the chamber, the vortex chamber can control passively the injection flowrate. Fundamental characteristics such as discharge flow rate and pressure drop of the vortex chamber are measured, and its parametric effects on the performance of the vortex chamber are also systematically investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.287-298
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• 2007

As part of the $AP1000^{TM}$ pressurized water reactor design certification program, a series of integral systems tests of the nuclear steam supply system was performed at the APEX-1000 test facility at Oregon State University. These tests provided data necessary to validate Westinghouse safety analysis computer codes for AP1000 applications. In addition, the tests provided the opportunity to investigate the thermal-hydraulic phenomena expected to be important in AP1000 small-break loss of coolant accidents (SBLOCAs). The APEX-1000 facility is a 1/4-scale pressure and 1/4-scale height simulation of the AP1000 nuclear steam supply system and passive safety features. A series of eleven tests was performed in the APEX-1000 facility as part of a U.S. Department of Energy contract. In all, four SBLOCA tests representing a spectrum of break sizes and locations were simulated along with tests to study specific phenomena of interest. The focus of this paper is the SBLOCA tests. The key thermal-hydraulic phenomena simulated in the APEX-1000 tests, and the performance and interactions of the passive safety-related systems that can be investigated through the APEX-1000 facility, are emphasized. The APEX-1000 tests demonstrate that the AP1000 passive safety-related systems successfully combine to provide a continuous removal of core decay heat and the reactor core remains covered with considerable margin for all small-break LOCA events.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.918-924
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• 2020

Film boiling is of great importance in nuclear safety as it directly influences the integrity of nuclear fuel in case of accidents involving loss of coolant. Recently, nuclear power plant safety under earthquake conditions has received much attention. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no existing studies reporting film boiling in an oscillating system. Most previous studies for film boiling were performed on stationary systems. In this study, numerical simulations were performed for saturated film boiling of water on a horizontal surface under low frequencies to investigate the effect of system oscillation on film boiling heat transfer. A coupled level-set and volume-of-fluid method was used to track the interface between the vapor and liquid phases. With a fixed oscillation amplitude, overall, heat transfer decreases with oscillation frequency. However, there is a frequency region in which heat transfer remains nearly constant. This lock-on phenomenon occurs when the oscillation frequency is near the natural bubble release frequency. With a fixed oscillation frequency, heat transfer decreases with oscillation amplitude. With a fixed maximum amplitude of the additional gravity, heat transfer is affected little by the combination of oscillation amplitude and frequency.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.4014-4021
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• 2021

If safety injection systems (SISs) do not work in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), the accident can progress to a severe accident in which the reactor core is exposed and the reactor vessel fails. Therefore, it is considered that a technology that provides recoverable maximum time for SIS actuation is necessary to prevent this progression. In this study, the corresponding time was defined as the golden time. To achieve the objective of accurately predicting the golden time, the prediction was performed using the deep fuzzy neural network (DFNN) with rule-dropout. The DFNN with rule-dropout has an architecture in which many of the fuzzy neural networks (FNNs) are connected and is a method in which the fuzzy rule numbers, which are directly related to the number of nodes in the FNN that affect inference performance, are properly adjusted by a genetic algorithm. The golden time prediction performance of the DFNN model with rule-dropout was better than that of the support vector regression model. By using the prediction result through the proposed DFNN with rule-dropout, it is expected to prevent the aggravation of the accidents by providing the maximum remaining time for SIS recovery, which failed in the LOCA situation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.12-24
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• 2001

The post-LOCA long term cooling (LTC) performance of the Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant (KSNPP) is analyzed for both small break loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCA) and large break LOCA at cold leg. The RELAP5/MOD3.2.2 beta code is used to calculate the LTC sequences based on the LTC plan of the Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plants (KSNPP). A standard input model is developed such that LOCA and the followed LTC sequence can be calculated in a single run for both small break LOCA and large break LOCA. A spectrum of small break LOCA ranging from \ulcorner.02 to 0.5 k2 of break area and a double-ended guillotine break are analyzed. Through the code calculations, the thermal-hydraulic behavior and the boron behavior are evaluated and the effect of the important action including the safety injection tank (SIT isolation and the simultaneous injection in LTC procedure is investigated. As a result, it is found that the sufficient margin is available in avoiding the boron precipitation in the core. It is also found that a further specific condition for the SIT isolation action need to be setup and it is recommended that the early initiation of the simultaneous injection be taken for larger break LTC sequences.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.343-351
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• 2011

Nuclear containment building is the last barrier for being secure from any nuclear power plant accident. Therefore, it is very important to understand the ultimate capacity of nuclear containment building to loads associated with severe accidents. LOCA (loss of coolant accident) is considered as the basic accidental load and CANDU-type containment building is considered as a target structure in order to conduct the numerical analysis for the structural safety of a containment building. The CANDU-type containment building is a prestressed concrete shell structure which has the dome and the cylindrical wall and is reinforced with bonded tendons. In this paper, the evaluation of ultimate internal pressure capacity was carried out by nonlinear analysis of a prestressed concrete containment building using 3-dimensional structural analysis system.