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Diameter Evaluation for PHWR Pressure Tube Based on the Measured Data

측정 데이터 기반 중수로 압력관 직경평가 방법론 개발

  • Received : 2023.05.26
  • Accepted : 2023.06.20
  • Published : 2023.06.30

Abstract

Pressure tubes are the main components of PHWR core and serve as the pressure boundary of the primary heat transport system. However, because pressure tubes have changed their geometrical dimensions under the severe operating conditions of high temperature, high pressure and neutron irradiation according to the increase of operation time, all dimensional changes should be predicted to ensure that dimensions remain within the allowable design ranges during the operation. Among the deformations, the diameter expansion due to creep leads to the increase of bypass flow which may not contribute to the fuel cooling, the decrease of critical channel power and finally the deration of the power to maintain the operational safety margin. This study is focused on the modeling of the expansion of the pressure tube diameter based on the operating conditions and measured diameter data. The pressure tube diameter expansion was modeled using the neutron flux and temperature distributions of each fuel channel and each fuel bundle as well as the measured diameter data. Although the basic concept of the current modeling approach is simple, the diameter prediction results using the developed methodology showed very good agreement with the real data, compared to the existing methodology.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

이 연구는 과학기술정보통신부 재원으로 한국연구재단의 지원을 받아 수행되었습니다. (과제번호: RS-2022-00155533)

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