• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제46권6호
• /
• pp.875-882
• /
• 2014

In terms of safety and the efficient management of spent fuel storage, detecting failed fuel is one of the most important tasks in a CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor operation. It has been successfully demonstrated that in a CANDU reactor, on-power failed fuel detection and location systems, along with alarm area gamma monitors, can detect and locate defective and suspect fuel bundles before discharging them from the reactor to the spent fuel storage bay. In the reception bay, however, only visual inspection has been used to identify suspect bundles. Gaseous fission product and delayed neutron monitoring systems cannot precisely distinguish failed fuel elements from each fuel bundle. This study reports the use of a sipping system in a CANDU reactor for the integrity assessment of spent fuel bundles. The integrity assessment of spent fuel bundles using this sipping system has shown promise as a nondestructive test for detecting a defective fuel bundle in a CANDU reactor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제53권12호
• /
• pp.3910-3917
• /
• 2021

Reactor fuel's power distribution plays a vital role in designing the new generation thermionic Space Reactor Power Systems (SRPS). In this paper, the 1/12th SPACE-R's full reactor core was numerically analyzed with two kinds of different axial power distribution, to identify their impacts on thermal-hydraulic and thermoelectric characteristics. In the benchmark study, the maximum error between numerical results and existing data or design values ranged from 0.2 to 2.2%. Four main conclusions were obtained in the numerical analysis: a) The axial power distribution has less impact on coolant temperature. b) Axial power distribution influenced the emitter temperature distribution a lot, when the core power was cosine distributed, the maximum temperature of the emitter was 194 K higher than that of the uniform power distribution. c) Comparing to the cosine axial power distribution, the uniform axial power distribution would make the maximum temperature in each component of the reactor core much lower, reducing the requirements for core fuel material. d) Voltage and current distribution were similar to the axial electrode temperature distribution, and the axial power distribution has little effect on the output power.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
• /
• pp.707-712
• /
• 1997

This paper presents the current state of knowledge on molten material relocation into the lower plenum. Consequences of movement of material to the lower head are considered with regardt to the potential for reactor pressure vessel failure from both thermal hydraulic and mechanical standpoints. The models are applied to evaluating various in-vessel retention strategies for the Korean Standard power plant (KSNPP) reactor The results are summarized in terms of thermal response of the reactor vessel from the very relevant severe accident management perspective.

• 소음진동
• /
• 제10권1호
• /
• pp.129-137
• /
• 2000

This paper presents the vibration characteristics of reactor internals of Ulchin-1 nuclear power plant, which are identified by using the conventional and the phase separated spectral analysis of the pressure vessel acceleration and ex-core neutron signals. These identified vibration characteristics show excellent agreement with those of Tricastin-1 nuclear power plant that is the prototype of Ulchin-1. And the trend of ex-core neutron signals has been observed during one reactor cycle. These results can be used as basic data for fault diagnosis of reactor internals.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제39권4호
• /
• pp.249-256
• /
• 2007

Light water reactors operated under supercritical pressure conditions have been selected as one of the promising future reactor concepts to be studied by the Generation IV International Forum. Whereas the steam cycle of such reactors can be derived from modem fossil fired power plants, the reactor itself, and in particular the reactor core, still need to be developed. Different core design concepts shall be described here to outline the strategy. A first option for near future applications is a pressurized water reactor with $380^{\circ}C$ core exit temperature, having a closed primary loop and achieving 2% pts. higher net efficiency and 24% higher specific turbine power than latest pressurized water reactors. More efficiency and turbine power can be gained from core exit temperatures around $500^{\circ}C$, which require a multi step heat up process in the core with intermediate coolant mixing, achieving up to 44% net efficiency. The paper summarizes different core and assembly design approaches which have been studied recently for such High Performance Light Water Reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제54권8호
• /
• pp.2877-2882
• /
• 2022

The paper presents the main results of computational and experimental optimization of the automatic power control system (AC) of the IBR-2M pulsed reactor in the presence of a high level of oscillatory instability. Optimization of the parameters of the AC made it possible to significantly reduce the influence of random and deterministic oscillations of reactivity on the noise of the pulse energy, as well as to sharply reduce the manifestation of the oscillatory instability of the reactor. As a result, the safety and reliability of operation of the reactor has increased substantially.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제55권11호
• /
• pp.3935-3939
• /
• 2023

The paper presents the results of a study of radioactive noble gases and from decay products in the atmosphere of the reactor hall of the research nuclear reactor IVV-2M. The distribution of short-lived ⁸⁸Rb and ¹³⁸Cs activity by sizes of aerosol particles was measured in the range of 0.5-1000 nm. It is shown that radioactive aerosols are characterized by three main modes with AMTD 2-3 nm, 7-15 nm and 400 nm. About 70% of aerosol activity is due to ⁸⁸Rb. The equilibrium factor between ⁸⁸Kr and ⁸⁸Rb is 0.2 ± 0.1. The total concentration of aerosols particles was measured using an aerosol diffusion spectrometer. The value of unattached fraction of radioactive aerosols in the atmosphere of reactor hall IVV2M was f = 0.15-0.25 at the average total aerosol particles concentration from 20,000 cm³ to 53,000 cm³.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제44권3호
• /
• pp.249-260
• /
• 2012

Main focus of the combined nuclear research activities at Aachen University (RWTH) and the Research Center J$\ddot{u}$lich (J$\ddot{U}$LICH) is the experimental and analytical investigation of containment phenomena and processes. We are deeply convinced that reliable simulations for operation, design basis and beyond-design basis accidents of nuclear power plants need the application of so-called lumped-parameter (LP) based codes as well as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes in an indispensable manner. The LP code being used at our institutions is the GRS code COCOSYS and the CFD tool is ANSYS CFX mostly used in German nuclear research. Both codes are applied for safety analyses especially of beyond design accidents. Focal point of the work is containment thermal-hydraulics, but source term relevant investigations for aerosol and iodine behavior are performed as well. To increase the capability of COCOSYS and CFX detailed models for specific features, e.g. recombiner behavior including chimney effect, building condenser, and wall condensation are developed and validated against facilities at different scales. The close connection between analytical and experimental activities is notable and identifying feature of the RWTH/J$\ddot{U}$LICH activities.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 대한기계학회 2001년도 춘계학술대회논문집A
• /
• pp.782-787
• /
• 2001

This paper is concerned with the global rupture of a nuclear reactor pressure vessel(RPV) in a severe accident. During the severe reactor accident of molten core, the temperature and the pressure in the nuclear reactor rise to a certain level depending on the initial and subsequent condition of a severe accident. While the rise of the temperature cause the thermal softening of RPV material, the rise of the internal pressure could cause failure of the RPV lower head. The global rupture of an RPV is simulated by finite element limit analysis for the collapse pressure and mode and this analysis results have been compared with a variation of the internal pressure of RPV. The finite element limit method is a systematic tool to secure the safety criteria of a nuclear reactor and to evaluate the in-vessel corium retention.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제40권6호
• /
• pp.517-526
• /
• 2008

The widespread concern regarding the management of spent fuel that mainly contributes to nuclear waste has led to the development of the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) as one of the most promising future types of reactors at both national and international levels. Various reactor deployment scenarios with SFR introductions with different conversion ratios in the existing PWR-dominant nuclear fleet have been assessed to optimize the SFR deployment strategy to replace PWRs with the view toward a reduction in the level of spent fuel as well as efficient uranium utilization through its reuse in a closed fuel cycle. An efficient reactor deployment strategy with the SFR introduction starting in 2040 has been drawn based on an SFR deployment strategy in which burners are deployed prior to breakeven reactors to reduce the amount of PWR spent fuel substantially at the early deployment stage. The PWR spent fuel disposal is reduced in this way by 98% and the cumulative uranium demand for PWRs to 2100 is projected to be 445 ktU, implying a uranium savings of 115 ktU. The SFR mix ratio in the nuclear fleet near the year 2100 is estimated to be approximately 35-40%. PWRs will remain as a main power reactor type until 2100 and SFRs will support waste minimization and fuel utilization.