• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.91-105
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• 2017

Thermal hydraulic (TH) analysis of nuclear power reactors is utmost important. In this way, the numerical codes that preparing TH data in reactor core are essential. In this paper, a subchannel analysis of a Russian pressurized water reactor (WWER1000) core with enhanced numerical code is carried out. For this, in fluid domain, the mass, axial and lateral momentum and energy conservation equations for desired control volume are solved, numerically. In the solid domain, the cylindrical heat transfer equation for calculation of radial temperature profile in fuel, gap and clad with finite difference and finite element solvers are considered. The dependence of material properties to fuel burnup with Calza-Bini fuel-gap model is implemented. This model is coupled with Isotope Generation and Depletion Code (ORIGEN2.1). The possibility of central hole consideration in fuel pellet is another advantage of this work. In addition, subchannel to subchannel and subchannel to rod connection data in hexagonal fuel assembly geometry could be prepared, automatically. For a demonstration of code capability, the steady state TH analysis of a the WWER1000 core is compromised with Thermal-hydraulic analysis code (COBRA-EN). By thermal hydraulic parameters averaging Fuel Assembly-to-Fuel Assembly method, the one sixth (symmetry) of the Boushehr Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) core with regular subchannels are modeled. Comparison between the results of the work and COBRA-EN demonstrates some advantages of the presented code. Using the code the thermal modeling of the fuel rods with considering the fission gas generation would be possible. In addition, this code is compatible with neutronic codes for coupling. This method is faster and more accurate for symmetrical simulation of the core with acceptable results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2000.06a
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• pp.679-686
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• 2000

Reactor Noise is defined as the fluctuations of measured instrumentation signals during full-power operation of reactor which have informations on reactor system dynamics such as neutron kinetics, thermal-hydraulics, and structural dynamics. Reactor noise analyses of ex-core neutron detector signals have been performed to monitor the vibration modes of reactor internals such as fuel assembly and Core Support Barrel in Yonggwang 3&4 Nuclear Power Plant. A real time mode separation technique have been developed and applied for the analyses. It has been found that the first vibration mode frequency of the fuel assembly was around 2.5 Hz, the beam and shell mode frequencies of CSB(Core Support Barrel) 8 Hz and 14.5 Hz, respectively. Also the analyses data base have been constructed for the continuous monitoring and diagnose of the reactor internals.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.257-270
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• 2011

A set of reflood tests has been performed using ATLAS, which is a thermal-hydraulic integral effect test facility for the pressurized water reactors of APR1400 and OPR1000. Several important phenomena were observed during the ATLAS LBLOCA reflood tests, including core quenching, down-comer boiling, ECC bypass, and steam binding. The present paper discusses those four topics based on the LB-CL-11 test, which is a best-estimate simulation of the LBLOCA reflood phase for APR1400 using ATLAS. Both homogeneous bottom quenching and inhomogeneous top quenching were observed for a uniform radial power profile during the LB-CL-11 test. From the observation of the down-comer boiling phenomena during the LB-CL-11 test, it was found that the measured void fraction in the lower down-comer region was relatively smaller than that estimated from the RELAP5 code, which predicted an unrealistically higher void generation and magnified the downcomer boiling effect for APR1400. The direct ECC bypass was the dominant ECC bypass mechanism throughout the test even though sweep-out occurred during the earlier period. The ECC bypass fractions were between 0.2 and 0.6 during the later test period. The steam binding phenomena was observed, and its effect on the collapsed water levels of the core and down-comer was discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2010

The SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactor (SCWR) pursues high power density to reduce its capital cost. The fast spectrum SCWR, called a super fast reactor, can be designed with a higher power density than thermal spectrum SCWR. The mechanism of increasing the average power density of the super fast reactor is studied theoretically and numerically. Some key parameters affecting the average power density, including fuel pin outer diameter, fuel pitch, power peaking factor, and the fraction of seed assemblies, are analyzed and optimized to achieve a more compact core. Based on those sensitivity analyses, a compact super fast reactor is successfully designed with an average power density of 294.8 W/$cm^3$. The core characteristics are analyzed by using three-dimensional neutronics/thermal-hydraulics coupling method. Numerical results show that all of the design criteria and goals are satisfied.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.922-932
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• 2024

This paper presents the design features and preliminary design analysis results of the Wielenga Innovation Static Salt Reactor (WISSR). The WISSR incorporates features that make it both flexible and inherently safe. It is based on innovative technology that controls a nuclear reactor by moving molten salt fuel into or out of the core. The reactor is a low-pressure, fast spectrum transuranic (TRU) burner reactor. Inherent shutdown is achieved by a large negative reactivity feedback of the liquid fuel and by the expansion of fuel out of the core. The core is made of concentric, thin annular fuel chambers containing molten fuel salt. A molten salt coolant passes between the concentric fuel chambers to cool the core. The core has both fixed and variable volume fuel chambers. Pressure, applied by helium gas to fuel reservoirs below the core, pushes fuel out of a reservoir and up into a set of variable volume chambers. A control system monitors the density and temperature of the fuel throughout the core. Using NaCl-(TRU,U)Cl₃ fuel and NaCl-KCl-MgCl₂ coolant, a road-transportable compact WISSR core design was developed at a power level of 1250 MWt. Preliminary neutronics and thermal-hydraulics analyses demonstrate the technical feasibility of WISSR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.1603-1610
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• 2020

Due to ever-growing advancements in computers and relatively easy access to them, many efforts have been made to develop high-fidelity, high-performance, multi-physics tools, which play a crucial role in the design and operation of nuclear reactors. For this purpose in this study, the neutronic Monte Carlo and thermal-hydraulic sub-channel codes entitled MCNP and COBRA-EN, respectively, were applied for external coupling with each other. The coupled code was validated by code-to-code comparison with the internal couplings between MCNP5 and SUBCHANFLOW as well as MCNP6 and CTF. The simulation results of all code systems were in good agreement with each other. Then, as the second problem, the core of the VVER-1000 v446 reactor was simulated by the MCNP4C/COBRA-EN coupled code to measure the capability of the developed code to calculate the neutronic and thermohydraulic parameters of real and industrial cases. The simulation results of VVER-1000 core were compared with FSAR and another numerical solution of this benchmark. The obtained results showed that the ability of the MCNP4C/COBRA-EN code for estimating the neutronic and thermohydraulic parameters was very satisfactory.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2230-2245
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• 2023

KANT (KAIST Advanced Nuclear Tachygraphy) is a PWR core simulator recently developed at Korea Advance Institute of Science and Technology, which solves three-dimensional steady-state and transient multigroup neutron diffusion equations under Cartesian geometries alongside the incorporation of thermal-hydraulics feedback effect for multi-physics calculation. It utilizes the standard Nodal Expansion Method (NEM) accelerated with various Coarse Mesh Finite Difference (CMFD) methods for neutronics calculation. For thermal-hydraulics (TH) calculation, a single-phase flow model and a one-dimensional cylindrical fuel rod heat conduction model are employed. The time-dependent neutronics and TH calculations are numerically solved through an implicit Euler scheme, where a detailed coupling strategy is presented in this paper alongside a description of nodal equivalence, macroscopic depletion, and pin power reconstruction. For validation of the steady, transient, and depletion calculation with pin power reconstruction capacity of KANT, solutions for various benchmark problems are presented. The IAEA 3-D PWR and 4-group KOEBERG problems were considered for the steady-state reactor benchmark problem. For transient calculations, LMW (Lagenbuch, Maurer and Werner) LWR and NEACRP 3-D PWR benchmarks were solved, where the latter problem includes thermal-hydraulics feedback. For macroscopic depletion with pin power reconstruction, a small PWR problem modified with KAIST benchmark model was solved. For validation of the multi-physics analysis capability of KANT concerning large-sized PWRs, the BEAVRS Cycle1 benchmark has been considered. It was found that KANT solutions are accurate and consistent compared to other published works.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.11d
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• pp.638-640
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• 2000

Reactor Noise is defined as the fluctuations of measured instrumentation signals during full-power operation of reactor which have informations on reactor system dynamics such as neutron kinetics, thermal-hydraulics, and structural dynamics. Reactor noise analyses of ex-core neutron detector internals such as fuel assembly and Core Support Barrel in Nuclear Power Plant. A real time mode separation technique have been developed and applied for the analyses. The analyses data base have been constructed for the continuous monitoring and diagnose of the reactor internals. Detailed design of diagnostic system reactor internal structures using neutron noise(RIDS).

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.114-129
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this paper is to confirm the event timings and the magnitude of fission product aerosol release from the Fukushima accident. Over a few hundreds of technical papers have been published on the environmental impact of Fukushima Daiichi accident since the accident occurred on March 11, 2011. However, most of the research used reverse or inverse method based on the monitoring of activities in the remote places and only few papers attempted to estimate the release of fission products from individual reactor core or from individual spent fuel pool. Severe accident analysis code can be used to estimate the radioactive release from which reactor core and from which radionuclide the peaks in monitoring points can be generated. Materials and Methods: The basic material used for this study are the initial core inventory obtained from the report JAEA-Data/Code 2012-018 and the given accident scenarios provided by Japanese Government or Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in official reports. In this research a forward method using severe accident progression code is used as it might be useful for justifying the results of reverse or inverse method or vice versa. Results and Discussion: The release timing and amounts to the environment are estimated for volatile radioactive fission products such as noble gases, cesium, iodine, and tellurium up to 184 hours (about 7.7 days) after earthquake occurs. The in-plant fission product behaviors and release characteristics to environment are estimated using the severe accident progression analysis code, MELCOR, for Fukushima Daiichi accident. These results are compared with other research results which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 Report and other technical papers. Also it may provide the physically based arguments for justifying or suspecting the rationale for the scenarios provided in open literature. Conclusion: The estimated results by MELCOR code simulation of this study indicate that the release amount of volatile fission products to environment from Units 1, 2, and 3 cores is well within the range estimated by the reverse or inverse method, which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 report. But this does not necessarily mean that these two approaches are consistent.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.91-107
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• 2003

Since DBA(Design Basis Accidents) has been studied rather separately from SA(Severe Accidents) in the conventional nuclear reactor safety analysis, the thermal hydraulics during transition between DBA and SA has not been identified so much as each accident itself. Thus, in this study, the thermal hydraulic behavior from DBA to the commencement of SA has been experimentally and analytically investigated for the long-term cooling phase of LB-LOCA(Large-Break Loss-of-Coolant Accident). Experiments were conducted for both cases of the loop seal open and closed in an integral test loop, named as SNUF (Seoul National University Facility), which was scaled down to l/6.4 in length and 1/178 in area of the APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor 1400MWe). The core mixture level was a main measured value since it took major role in the fuel heat-up rate, the location of fuel melting initiation and the channel blockage by melting material during SA. Experimental results were compared to MAAP4.03 to assess its model of calculating the core mixture level. MAAP4.03 overestimates the core two- phase mixture level because sweep-out and spill-over and the measures to simulate the status of loop seal are not included, which is against the conservatism. Thus, it is recommended that MAAP4.03 should be improved to simulate the thermal hydraulic phenomena, such as sweep-out, spill-over and the status of loop seal.