Coupled neutronics/thermal hydraulics evaluation for thorium based fuels in thermal spectrum SCWR

Chaudri, Khurrum Saleem; Tian, Wenxi; Su, G.H.; Qiu, Suizheng

doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2013.05.004

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(17 reference statements)

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“…Note that the neutron spectra of the 239 Pu loading fuels are significantly harder than the other cases, which mainly result from the larger absorption cross section of 239 Pu around 0.3 eV (http:// www.nndc.bnl.gov/exfor/endf00.jsp). These spectrum characteristics for different heavy metal fuels also exist in other types of reactors (Chaudri et al, 2013;Salvatores et al, 1997). Table 1 presents the neutronics parameters of the FHR core with the six fuel options.…”

Section: Neutron Spectrum and Criticalitymentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The lower resolved resonance region of a nuclide, the greater value of FTCR can be obtained on account of more apparent Doppler effect (Chaudri et al, 2013 MTCR and CTCR are caused by the influence of moderator and coolant respectively on the fuel resonance absorption by spectrum shift. The MTCR value is very small because the changes of the graphite density can be ignored and the spectrum shift is very little with varying temperature (Nuttin et al, 2005).…”

Section: Temperature Coefficient Of Reactivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The majority of options for the use of thorium previously proposed have relied on highly innovative reactor concepts (Lung, 1997), such as Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) (Merle-Lucotte et al, 2008), Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) (Ramanna and Lee, 1986), Super Critical Water Reactor (SCWR) (Chaudri et al, 2013) and Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) (Salvatores et al, 1997). And the studies of thorium utilization with existing reactors, in most cases PWR specific, were also summarized (Puill, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Analysis of thorium and uranium based nuclear fuel options in Fluoride salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor

Xiang-Zhou

Jiang

et al. 2015

Progress in Nuclear Energy

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Section: Neutron Spectrum and Criticalitymentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Temperature Coefficient Of Reactivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Analysis of thorium and uranium based nuclear fuel options in Fluoride salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor

Xiang-Zhou

Jiang

et al. 2015

Progress in Nuclear Energy

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“…In [5] thorium-based fuels in SCWRs were studied. The results show that thorium-uranium dioxide fuels lead to smaller burnup values as compared to equivalent enriched uranium dioxide, but possess the advantage of smaller excess reactivity at initial load state.…”

Section: Introduction mentioning

confidence: 99%

Coupled Analysis of Thorium-based Fuels in the High-Performance Light Water Reactor Fuel Assembly

et al. 2021

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One of the six selected concepts to be part of Generation IV nuclear reactors is the Supercritical Light Water Cooled Reactor. The High-Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR) is the European version and it is a very promising design. In recent years, interest in the study of thorium-based fuel cycles has been renewed and its possibilities for current LWRs have been evaluated. The use of thoriumbased fuels will be fundamental in the future sustainability of nuclear energy, since in addition to its abundance in nature, thorium has an important group of advantages. In this paper, performance of thorium-based fuels in the typical fuel assembly of the HPLWR reactor is evaluated, using a computational model based on CFD and Monte Carlo codes for the neutronic/thermal-hydraulic coupled analysis. The volumetric power density profiles, coolant temperature profiles, fuel temperature profiles and others are compared with those obtained for standard UO 2 fuel. When the thorium-based fuels are used, the obtained infinite multiplication coefficients are smaller than the value obtained when UO 2 is used, since the 232 Th isotope has a lower contribution to the multiplicative properties of the medium than 238 U. As a result, a difference of approximately 12 000 pcm was observed. The results verified that the HPLWR is a thermal reactor with a hard spectrum. There are no notable changes in the neutron spectrum if the mass fraction of thorium is slightly varied. With coupled analysis, the potential benefits of the utilization of thorium-based fuels were verified. Moreover, a significant temperature decrease by 136 K on the center line of the fuel elements was observed. When the mass fraction of thorium increases in the oxides mixture, the weighted average temperature on the fuel elements decreases.

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“…Safety and reliability focuses on the reactor type having very low chances of experiencing core damage, and there must not be the need for on-site emergency response. Proliferation resistance and physical protection focuses on the reactor type being a very unattractive route for diversion or theft of weapons-usable materials, and preventing terrorist acts by providing increased physical protection ( GIF, 2002 ; Chaudri et al, 2013 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical investigation of heat transfer in parallel channels with water at supercritical pressure

Shitsi

Debrah

Agbodemegbe

et al. 2017

Heliyon

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Thermal phenomena such as heat transfer enhancement, heat transfer deterioration, and flow instability observed at supercritical pressures as a result of fluid property variations have the potential to affect the safety of design and operation of Supercritical Water-cooled Reactor SCWR, and also challenge the capabilities of both heat transfer correlations and Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD physical models. These phenomena observed at supercritical pressures need to be thoroughly investigated.An experimental study was carried out by Xi to investigate flow instability in parallel channels at supercritical pressures under different mass flow rates, pressures, and axial power shapes. Experimental data on flow instability at inlet of the heated channels were obtained but no heat transfer data along the axial length was obtained. This numerical study used 3D numerical tool STAR-CCM+ to investigate heat transfer at supercritical pressures along the axial lengths of the parallel channels with water ahead of experimental data. Homogeneous axial power shape HAPS was adopted and the heating powers adopted in this work were below the experimental threshold heating powers obtained for HAPS by Xi. The results show that the Fluid Centre-line Temperature FCLT increased linearly below and above the PCT region, but flattened at the PCT region for all the system parameters considered. The inlet temperature, heating power, pressure, gravity and mass flow rate have effects on WT (wall temperature) values in the NHT (normal heat transfer), EHT (enhanced heat transfer), DHT (deteriorated heat transfer) and recovery from DHT regions. While variation of all other system parameters in the EHT and PCT regions showed no significant difference in the WT and FCLT values respectively, the WT and FCLT values respectively increased with pressure in these regions. For most of the system parameters considered, the FCLT and WT values obtained in the two channels were nearly the same. The numerical study was not quantitatively compared with experimental data along the axial lengths of the parallel channels, but it was observed that the numerical tool STAR-CCM+ adopted was able to capture the trends for NHT, EHT, DHT and recovery from DHT regions. The heating powers used for the various simulations were below the experimentally observed threshold heating powers, but heat transfer deterioration HTD was observed, confirming the previous finding that HTD could occur before the occurrence of unstable behavior at supercritical pressures. For purposes of comparing the results of numerical simulations with experimental data, the heat transfer data on temperature oscillations obtained at the outlet of the heated channels and instability boundary results obtained at the inlet of the heated channels were compared. The numerical results obtained quite well agree with the experimental data. This work calls for provision of experimental data on heat transfer in parallel channels at supercritical pressures for validation of similar numerical studies.

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Coupled neutronics/thermal hydraulics evaluation for thorium based fuels in thermal spectrum SCWR

Cited by 10 publications

References 12 publications

Analysis of thorium and uranium based nuclear fuel options in Fluoride salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor

Analysis of thorium and uranium based nuclear fuel options in Fluoride salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor

Coupled Analysis of Thorium-based Fuels in the High-Performance Light Water Reactor Fuel Assembly

Numerical investigation of heat transfer in parallel channels with water at supercritical pressure

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