• Title/Summary/Keyword: nuclear power engineering

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Application of Low Voltage High Resistance Grounding in Nuclear Power Plants

  • Chang, Choong-Koo;Hassan, Mostafa Ahmed Fouad
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.211-217
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    • 2016
  • Most nuclear power plants now utilize solid grounded low voltage systems. For safety and reliability reasons, the low voltage (LV) high resistance grounding (HRG) system is also increasingly used in the pulp and paper, petroleum and chemical, and semiconductor industries. Fault detection is easiest and fastest with a solidly grounded system. However, a solidly grounded system has many limitations such as severe fault damage, poor reliability on essential circuits, and electrical noise caused by the high magnitude of ground fault currents. This paper will briefly address the strengths and weaknesses of LV grounding systems. An example of a low voltage HRG system in the LV system of a nuclear power plant will be presented. The HRG system is highly recommended for LV systems of nuclear power plants if sufficient considerations are provided to prevent nuisance tripping of ground fault relays and to avoid the deterioration of system reliability.

A Study on Battery Charger Reliability Improvement of Nuclear Power Plants DC Distribution System (원자력발전소 직류 전력계통의 충전기 신뢰도 향상방안 연구)

  • Lim, Hyuk-Soon;Kim, Doo-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.25 no.2
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    • pp.24-28
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    • 2010
  • The nuclear power Plant onsite AC electrical power sources are required to supply power to the engineering safety facility buses if the offsite power source is lost. Typically, Diesel Generators are used as the onsite power source. The 125 VAC buses are part of the onsite Class 1E AC and DC electrical power distribution system. The DC power distribution system ensure the availability of DC electrical power for system required to shutdown the reactor and maintain it in a safety condition after an anticipated operational occurrence or a postulated Design Base Accident. Recently, onsite DC power supply system trip occurs the loss of system function. To obtain the performance such as reliability and availability, we analyzed the cause of battery charger trip and described the improvement of DC power supply system reliability. Finally, we provide reliability performance criteria of charger in order to ensure the probabilistic goals for the safety of the nuclear power plants.

COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN NUCLEAR ENGINEERING

  • UHRIG ROBERT E.;HINES J. WESLEY
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.127-138
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    • 2005
  • Approaches to several recent issues in the operation of nuclear power plants using computational intelligence are discussed. These issues include 1) noise analysis techniques, 2) on-line monitoring and sensor validation, 3) regularization of ill-posed surveillance and diagnostic measurements, 4) transient identification, 5) artificial intelligence-based core monitoring and diagnostic system, 6) continuous efficiency improvement of nuclear power plants, and 7) autonomous anticipatory control and intelligent-agents. Several changes to the focus of Computational Intelligence in Nuclear Engineering have occurred in the past few years. With earlier activities focusing on the development of condition monitoring and diagnostic techniques for current nuclear power plants, recent activities have focused on the implementation of those methods and the development of methods for next generation plants and space reactors. These advanced techniques are expected to become increasingly important as current generation nuclear power plants have their licenses extended to 60 years and next generation reactors are being designed to operate for extended fuel cycles (up to 25 years), with less operator oversight, and especially for nuclear plants operating in severe environments such as space or ice-bound locations.

CFD/RELAP5 coupling analysis of the ISP No. 43 boron dilution experiment

  • Ye, Linrong;Yu, Hao;Wang, Mingjun;Wang, Qianglong;Tian, Wenxi;Qiu, Suizheng;Su, G.H.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.54 no.1
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    • pp.97-109
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    • 2022
  • Multi-dimensional coupling analysis is a research hot spot in nuclear reactor thermal hydraulic study and both the full-scale system transient response and local key three-dimensional thermal hydraulic phenomenon could be obtained simultaneously, which can achieve the balance between efficiency and accuracy in the numerical simulation of nuclear reactor. A one-dimensional to three-dimensional (1D-3D) coupling platform for the nuclear reactor multi-dimensional analysis is developed by XJTU-NuTheL (Nuclear Thermal-hydraulic Laboratory at Xi'an Jiaotong University) based on the CFD code Fluent and system code RELAP5 through the Dynamic Link Library (DLL) technology and Fluent user-defined functions (UDF). In this paper, the International Standard Problem (ISP) No. 43 is selected as the benchmark and the rapid boron dilution transient in the nuclear reactor is studied with the coupling code. The code validation is conducted first and the numerical simulation results show good agreement with the experimental data. The three-dimensional flow and temperature fields in the downcomer are analyzed in detail during the transient scenarios. The strong reverse flow is observed beneath the inlet cold leg, causing the de-borated water slug to mainly diffuse in the circumferential direction. The deviations between the experimental data and the transients predicted by the coupling code are also discussed.

Program development and preliminary CHF characteristics analysis for natural circulation loop under moving condition

  • Gui, Minyang;Tian, Wenxi;Wu, Di;Chen, Ronghua;Su, G.H.;Qiu, Suizheng
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.2
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    • pp.446-454
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    • 2021
  • Critical heat flux (CHF) has traditionally been evaluated using look-up tables or empirical correlations for nuclear power plants. However, under complex moving condition, it is necessary to reconsider the CHF characteristics since the conventional CHF prediction methods would no longer be applicable. In this paper, the additional forces caused by motions have been added to the annular film dryout (AFD) mechanistic model to investigate the effect of moving condition on CHF. Moreover, a theoretical model of the natural circulation loop with additional forces is established to reflect the natural circulation characteristics of the loop system. By coupling the system loop with the AFD mechanistic model, a CHF prediction program called NACOM for natural circulation loop under moving condition is developed. The effects of three operating conditions, namely stationary, inclination and rolling, on the CHF of the loop are then analyzed. It can be clearly seen that the moving condition has an adverse effect on the CHF in the natural circulation system. For the calculation parameters in this paper, the CHF can be reduced by 25% compared with the static value, which indicates that it is important to consider the effects of moving condition to retain adequate safety margin in subsequent thermal-hydraulic designs.

Research on heat transfer coefficient of supercritical water based on factorial and correspondence analysis

  • Xiang, Feng;Tao, Zhou;Jialei, Zhang;Boya, Zhang;Dongliang, Ma
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.52 no.7
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    • pp.1409-1416
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    • 2020
  • The study of heat transfer coefficient of supercritical water plays an important role in improving the heat transfer efficiency of the reactor. Taking the supercritical natural circulation experimental bench as the research object, the effects of power, flow, pipe diameter and mainstream temperature on the heat transfer coefficient of supercritical water were studied. At the same time, the experimental data of Chen Yuzhou's supercritical water heat transfer coefficient was collected. Through the factorial design method, the influence of different factors and their interactions on the heat transfer coefficient of supercritical water is analyzed. Through the corresponding analysis method, the influencing factors of different levels of heat transfer coefficient are analyzed. It can be found: Except for the effects of flow rate, power, power-temperature and temperature, the influence of other factors on the natural circulation heat transfer coefficient of supercritical water is negligible. When the heat transfer coefficient is low, it is mainly affected by the pipe diameter. As the heat transfer coefficient is further increased, it is mainly affected by temperature and power. When the heat transfer coefficient is at a large level, the influence of the flow rate is the largest at this time.

Safety assessment of generation III nuclear power plant buildings subjected to commercial aircraft crash part III: Engine missile impacting SC plate

  • Xu, Z.Y.;Wu, H.;Liu, X.;Qu, Y.G.;Li, Z.C.;Fang, Q.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.52 no.2
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    • pp.417-428
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    • 2020
  • Investigations of the commercial aircraft impact effect on nuclear island infrastructures have been drawing extensive attention, and this paper aims to perform the safety assessment of Generation III nuclear power plant (NPP) buildings subjected to typical commercial aircrafts crash. At present Part III, the local damage of the rigid components of aircraft, e.g., engine and landing gear, impacting the steel concrete (SC) structures of NPP containment is mainly discussed. Two typical SC target panels with the thicknesses of 40 mm and 100 mm, as well as the steel cylindrical projectile with a mass of 2.15 kg and a diameter of 80 mm are fabricated. By using a large-caliber air gas gun, both the projectile penetration and perforation test are conducted, in which the striking velocities were ranged from 96 m/s to 157 m/s. The bulging velocity and the maximal deflection of rear steel plate, as well as penetration depth of projectile are derived, and the local deformation and failure modes of SC panels are assessed experimentally. Then, the commercial finite element program LS-DYNA is utilized to perform the numerical simulations, by comparisons with the experimental and simulated projectile impact process and SC panel damage, the numerical algorithm, constitutive models and the corresponding parameters are verified. The present work can provide helpful references for the evaluation of the local impact resistance of NPP buildings against the aircraft engine.