Computational model for thermohydraulic analysis of an integral pressurized water reactor with mixed oxide fuel (Th, Pu)O2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15392/2319-0612.2022.1943Keywords:
SMR, CFD, MOXAbstract
The use of advanced generation III+ and IV nuclear reactors, and their applications, has become important, seen as a means capable of contributing to the global transition to more sustainable, affordable and reliable energy systems. This technology, which could be integrated into future carbon-free electric power generation systems with high proportions of different renewable energy sources, includes Small Modular Reactors (SMR). There are about 100 different proposed projects of Generation III+ and IV, of which about 50 are SMR concepts, in various stages of development and of different types of technologies. Other important issues for achieving the long-term sustainability of nuclear energy are the proper use of its fuel sources and the improvement of nuclear waste management. Therefore, fuels based on a mixture of oxides have been used successfully in several countries. In addition, the incorporation of thorium-based fuel is a current challenge for the new designs of advanced reactors. The present paper focuses on the analysis of a small modular integral pressurized water reactor (iPWR) with Thorium-Uranium Oxide (Th-U MOX) mixtures. A thermohydraulic model is developed using the Ansys CFX program, which allows the calculation of the temperature distribution in the section where the highest power is produced within the SMR IPWR core (critical section). The temperature distributions in the fuel, clad and coolant were calculated with the objective of verifying that they were within the safety limits.
- Views: 161
- PDF Downloads: 118
Downloads
References
E. M. A. Hussein, “Emerging small modular nuclear power reactors: A critical review,” Phys. Open, vol. 5, no. August, p. 100038, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.physo.2020.100038. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physo.2020.100038
IAEA, Advances in Small Modular Reactor Technology Developments. 2020.
IAEA, “Thorium Resources as Co- and By- products of Rare Earth Deposits,” IAEA TECDOC Ser., p. 82, 2019.
E. Summary, “the Use of Thorium in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” 2015.
IAEA, “IAEA Nuclear Energy Series Role of Thorium to Supplement Fuel Cycles of Future Nuclear Energy Systems,” p. 157, 2012, [Online]. Available: www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1540_web.pdf.
M. C. Betancourt et al., “Mixed-oxide fuel strategies in an integral pressurized water reactor,” Prog. Nucl. Energy, vol. 139, no. June, 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.pnucene.2021.103844. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2021.103844
E. D. Kitcher and S. S. Chirayath, “Neutronics and thermal hydraulics analysis of a small modular reactor,” Ann. Nucl. Energy, vol. 97, no. December 2013, pp. 232–245, 2016, doi: 10.1016/j.anucene.2016.07.019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2016.07.019
M. A. Erighin, “A 48-month extended fuel cycle for the B&W mPowerTM small modular nuclear reactor,” Int. Conf. Phys. React. 2012, PHYSOR 2012 Adv. React. Phys., vol. 2, pp. 1315–1330, 2012.
J. Leppänen, PSG2 / Serpent – a Continuous-energy Monte Carlo Reactor Physics Burnup Calculation Code. 2008.
A. D. Canonsburg, “ANSYS CFX-Solver Manager User ’ s Guide,” no. January, 2020.
A. T. Godfrey, “VERA core physics benchmark progression problem specifications,” Consort. Adv. Simul. og LWRs, no. 793, pp. 1–189, 2014.
H. J. Kretzschmar and W. Wagner, International steam tables: Properties of water and steam based on the industrial formulation IAPWS-IF97. 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53219-5
F. Moukalled, L. Mangani, and M. Darwish, Erratum to The finite volume method in computational fluid dynamics [Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications, 113, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16874-6], vol. 113. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16874-6
IAEA, “Thermophysical Properties of Materials For Nuclear Engineering: A Tutorial and Collection of Data,” Nucl. Power Technol. Dev. Sect., 2008.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Brazilian Journal of Radiation Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Licensing: The BJRS articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
