A neutronic design study of lead-bismuth-cooled small and safe ultra-long-life cores

Kim, Jin Hyeong; You, Wuseung

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2015.04.032

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Each channel design must ensure that the coolant does not boil. Meanwhile, to prevent material corrosion, the speed of the LBE is limited to approximately 2.0 m/s (Hong et al, 2015).…”

Section: Materials Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on core power maximization method of natural circulation lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor

et al. 2022

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To improve the inherent safety and cost-effectiveness of lead-bismuth cooled fast reactors, the SPALLER-100 reactor designed by the University of South China has been selected as the research object to determine the maximum power it can produce. This is a multi-objective, complex, multi-dimensional, nonlinear, and constrained optimization problem. To maintain the transportability, material durability, and long-term operation stability of the reactor core and ensure safety under accident conditions, three steady-state limitations and three accident limitations are proposed. The platform used to calculate the maximum neutronic power produced by the reactor at different core heights has been built using Latin hypercube sampling and the Kriging proxy model. Meanwhile, the cooling power of the reactor at different core heights is calculated by considering its natural circulation capacity. Finally, a design scheme is obtained that meets the requirements of neutronic and thermal-hydraulic assessments, while producing maximum power. Consequently, during the entire life-cycle of SPALLER-100, a safety analysis of three typical accident scenarios (unprotected loss of heat sink, unprotected transient over power, and unprotected coolant inlet temperature undercooling) is performed using a Quasi-Static Reactivity Balance (QSRB) approach. The results show that the platform used to calculate the maximum neutronic power exhibits high accuracy, and that the design scheme with maximum power is safe and economical. Overall, this study can provide reference ideas for designing natural circulation reactors that can maximize power output.

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“…Each channel design must ensure that the coolant does not boil. Meanwhile, to prevent material corrosion, the speed of the LBE is limited to approximately 2.0 m/s (Hong et al, 2015).…”

Section: Materials Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on core power maximization method of natural circulation lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor

et al. 2022

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“…In this section, the decomposition analysis of SVR is performed to understand differences in the contribution components among the cores having different TRU feed compositions. Table compares the results of the decomposition analysis of SVR as leakage, fission, capture, and (n,2n) reaction components.…”

Section: Neutronic Core Analysis Of Sfr Burnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coupling of an innovative small PWR and advanced sodium-cooled fast reactor for incineration of TRU from once-through PWRs

Kim

Park

2015

Int. J. Energy Res.

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Summary In the nuclear industry, safely managing spent fuels discharged from PWRs (pressurized water reactors) is an ongoing challenge. In this paper, a synergistic coupling of innovative small long‐cycle PWRs and advanced sodium‐cooled fast reactors is considered to reduce the accumulated TRUs (transuranics) by transmuting them with electricity production. In the coupling strategy, the innovative small PWRs employing UO2–ThO2 and fully ceramic micro‐encapsulated fuels are used to deeply burn TRUs from commercial PWRs, while advanced SFRs (sodium‐cooled fast reactors) with actinide recycling are designed to further transmute the TRUs discharged from innovative small PWRs. This work focuses on the core physics analysis of new SFR burner cores using different TRU feeds discharged from small PWRs. Additionally, quasi‐static reactivity balance analyses are performed to understand the safety of the SFR burner cores. The mass flows of TRUs in the nuclear park, which is composed of PWRs, small long‐cycle PWRs, and SFR burners, are analyzed to evaluate TRU inventory reduction. The results of this study show that the advanced SFR burners with all the TRU feed types discharged from the small long‐cycle PWRs have a high TRU consumption rate. They satisfy all of the conditions for self‐controllability under unprotected accidents with a reasonable number of control rods. This coupling strategy requires ~35% less power in conjunction with the advanced SFR burners in the nuclear park and increases the support ratio of SFR burners by ~42% than does the coupling of commercial PWRs and SFR burners. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…After the Fukushima accident, researches on inherent safety technologies such as passive cooling and redundant and marginal design concept are taken into considerations in the nuclear industries . The concept of the small modular reactor satisfies perfectly such design goals in addition to an ultra‐long fuel cycle length without any fuel replacement or recharging based on breeding fissile isotopes by neutron capture reaction of fertile isotopes such as U‐238 and Th‐232 . Small modular reactors have been suggested with various conceptual designs to resolve not only future energy resources applying to the local district heating but also the mobile driving system such as ice‐break ships and space reactors .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of self-sustainable small modular reactor with multiple fissile and fertile layers

Park

Jung

et al. 2017

Int J Energy Res

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Summary In order to achieve the challenging design goal of a future‐advanced small modular reactor, this paper suggests newly three concepts for small modular reactor such as a fissile and fertile multiple arrangement, a molten‐fueled salt coolant, and a self‐adjustable pitch size. The multiple arrangements of fissile and fertile layers makes it possible to enhance breeding fissile isotopes through the optimal placement of the thinner fissile layer between the thicker fertile regions in the core. The second idea of a creative use of molten‐fueled salt as a coolant decreases the fuel loading as well as promotes safety significantly even if a severe core accident happens such as the loss of coolant accident. In that case, the reactor maintains the subcritical state owing to loss of molten‐fueled salt coolant that contributes loss of neutron source. When the fuel is melt down, it is smeared into coolant that incorporates the molten‐fueled salt coolant and both fuel and coolant are circulated simultaneously like the typical molten salt breeder reactor. The third idea of the new small modular reactor is an automatic size change of fuel lattice pitch, which plays an important role on keeping reactivity swing within a specified limit. This self‐adjustment of fuel rod and assembly pitch sizes can be realized by using of the shape memory material such as Ti‐Ni alloy in the fuel assembly bottom grid. Simulation results of the Monte Carlo depletion calculations indicate that the proposed brand‐new small modular reactor system is sufficiently achievable by providing an ultra‐long fuel cycle length and a sufficiently low reactivity swing through the optimization of design parameters. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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A neutronic design study of lead-bismuth-cooled small and safe ultra-long-life cores

Cited by 8 publications

References 11 publications

Research on core power maximization method of natural circulation lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor

Research on core power maximization method of natural circulation lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor

Coupling of an innovative small PWR and advanced sodium-cooled fast reactor for incineration of TRU from once-through PWRs

Design of self-sustainable small modular reactor with multiple fissile and fertile layers

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