• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.371-379
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• 1990

The Xenon spatial oscillation may give rise to operational difficulties in a nuclear power plant. In this study, in order to investigate the Xenon instability for a PWR, the frequency-domain technique is adopted by using Generalized Nyquist Criterion, which is more general and suitable for the multi-input/multi-output system. Also linearized modal fluxes are obtained by a modal expansion. This model has been implemented to test the axial Xenon stability of YGN-1 unit against the changes in plant operating parameters ; power level, control rod position, and core average burnup. The results show that the increase of power level and the deeper insertion of control rod have the destabilizing effect, and that the burnup progress makes the core less stable. Also the results show that the overestimation due to modal interaction was found not to be significant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.444-455
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• 1991

An accurate and fast running NEDAR model for calculating radial power profile throughout fuel life in both solid and annular pellets for existing and advanced CANDU-PHWR-fuel was developed in this work. This model contains resultant flux depression equations and neutron depression data tables which have been developed for CANDU-PHWR fuel of pellet with the diameter 8.0 to 19.5 mm and enrichment 0.71-6.0 wt % U-235, over a bumup range of 0 to 840 MWh /kgU (35000 MWD/T). In order to obtain the neutron flux distribution in the fuel pellet, the CE-HAMMER physics code was run for a neutron flux spectrum appropriate to a CANDU-PHWR to give predictions of radial power profile for several ranges of fuel design parameters. The results, which were calculated by the CE-HAMMER physics code, were fitted to an equation which is solved in terms of Bessel and exponential functions in order to obtain the parameters, $textsc{k}$, $\beta$ and λ in the resultant equation. The present NEDAR model produce a radial profile which, when normalized to unity at the pellet surface, is slightly higher than the profile of the original ELESIM data table. The predictions of the fission gas release by KAFEPA-NEDAR are in slightly better agreement with the experiments than those of ELESIM. The NEDAR model described in this study has been shown to provide an effective, reliable, and accurate method for determining radial power profiles in CANDU-PHWR fuel rods without incurring a significant increase in computing time.