The lack of full understanding of complex mechanisms connected with the interaction between thermal-hydraulics and neutronics still challenge the design and the operation of nuclear reactors by the adoption of conservative safety limits. The recent availability of powerful computer and computational techniques together with the continuing increase in operational experience imposes the revisiting of those areas and eventually the identification of design/safety requirements that can be relaxed [1]. Currently, the enlarged commercial exploitation of nuclear Research Reactors (RR) has increased the consideration to their corresponding safety issues. Almost all of the safety analyses have so far been performed using conservative computational tools [2]. Nowadays, the application of Best-Estimate (BE) methods constitutes a real necessity in order to increase their commercial productivity. In this framework, an attempt is made to apply the BE technique to perform a safety evaluation under research reactors operational conditions. In fact, this technique has been largely verified and validated for power reactors using coupled system thermal-hydraulic and three-dimensional neutron kinetics [1]. For this purpose, as typical representative of research reactors, the IAEA 10 MW MTR Research Reactors problem [3] is considered. The system thermal-hydraulic RELAP5 [4] code was developed to simulate transient scenarios in Power reactors such PWR, BWR, VVER, etc. However, only limited work was performed to access the applicability of the code to Research Reactors operating conditions (low pressure, mass flow rates, power, etc) [5]. Previous works performed in this field are reported in [5], [6] and [7]. In this framework, total and partial blockage of a single Fuel Assembly cooling channel are investigated. As a first attempt the calculations are performed by applying the BE thermal-hydraulic system code RELAP5 alone using its point kinetic model to derive the instantaneous core power.
Analysis of a total flow blockage of a fuel assembly in a typical MTR research reactor by Relap5/mod3.3
D'AURIA, FRANCESCO SAVERIO
2004-01-01
Abstract
The lack of full understanding of complex mechanisms connected with the interaction between thermal-hydraulics and neutronics still challenge the design and the operation of nuclear reactors by the adoption of conservative safety limits. The recent availability of powerful computer and computational techniques together with the continuing increase in operational experience imposes the revisiting of those areas and eventually the identification of design/safety requirements that can be relaxed [1]. Currently, the enlarged commercial exploitation of nuclear Research Reactors (RR) has increased the consideration to their corresponding safety issues. Almost all of the safety analyses have so far been performed using conservative computational tools [2]. Nowadays, the application of Best-Estimate (BE) methods constitutes a real necessity in order to increase their commercial productivity. In this framework, an attempt is made to apply the BE technique to perform a safety evaluation under research reactors operational conditions. In fact, this technique has been largely verified and validated for power reactors using coupled system thermal-hydraulic and three-dimensional neutron kinetics [1]. For this purpose, as typical representative of research reactors, the IAEA 10 MW MTR Research Reactors problem [3] is considered. The system thermal-hydraulic RELAP5 [4] code was developed to simulate transient scenarios in Power reactors such PWR, BWR, VVER, etc. However, only limited work was performed to access the applicability of the code to Research Reactors operating conditions (low pressure, mass flow rates, power, etc) [5]. Previous works performed in this field are reported in [5], [6] and [7]. In this framework, total and partial blockage of a single Fuel Assembly cooling channel are investigated. As a first attempt the calculations are performed by applying the BE thermal-hydraulic system code RELAP5 alone using its point kinetic model to derive the instantaneous core power.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
