• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권3호
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• pp.933-940
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• 2024

A macroscopic cross section generation model was developed for the conceptual horizontal, compact high temperature gas reactor (HC-HTGR). Because there are many sources of spectral effects in the design and analysis of the core, conventional LWR methods have limitations for accurate simulation of the HC-HTGR using a neutron diffusion core neutronics simulator. Several super-cell model configurations were investigated to consider the spectral effect of neighboring cells. A new history variable was introduced for the existing library format to more accurately account for the history effect from neighboring nodes and reactivity control drums. The macroscopic cross section library was validated through comparison with cross sections generated using full core Monte Carlo models and single cell cross section for both 3D core steady-state problems and 2D and 3D depletion problems. Core calculations were then performed with the AGREE HTR neutronics and thermal-fluid core simulator using super-cell cross sections. With the new history variable, the super-cell cross sections were in good agreement with the full core cross sections even for problems with significant spectrum change during fuel shuffling and depletion.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권4호
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• pp.1213-1224
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• 2024

The liquid lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor has been in a single-phase, low-pressure, and high-temperature state for a long time during operation. Considering the requirement of calculation efficiency for long-term transient accident calculation, based on a homogeneous hydrodynamic model, one-dimensional heat conduction model, coolant flow and heat transfer model, neutron kinetics model, coolant and material properties model, this study used the fully implicit difference scheme algorithm of the convection-diffusion term to solve the basic conservation equation, to develop the transient analysis program NUSOL-LMR 2.0 for the lead-bismuth fast reactor system. The steady-state and typical design basis accidents (including reactivity introduction, loss of flow caused by main pump idling, excessive cooling, and plant power outage accidents) for the ABR have been analyzed. The results are compared with the international system analysis software ATHENA. The results indicate that the developed program can stably, accurately, and efficiently predict the transient accident response and safety characteristics of the lead-bismuth fast reactor system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권5호
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• pp.869-877
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• 2020

A 24-month Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR1400) core with a very-low-boron (VLB) concentration has been investigated for an inherently safe and high-performance PWR in this work. To develop a high-performance APR1400 which is able to do the passive frequency control operation, VLB feature is essential. In this paper, the centrally-shielded burnable absorber (CSBA) is utilized for an efficient VLB operation in the 24-month cycle APR1400 core. This innovative design of the VLB APR1400 core includes the optimization of burnable absorber and loading pattern as well as axial cutback for a 24-month cycle operation. In addition to CSBA, an Er-doped guide thimble is also introduced for partial management of the excess reactivity and local peaking factor. To improve the neutron economy of the core, two alternative radial reflectors are adopted in this study, which are SS-304 and ZrO₂. The core reactivity and power distributions for a 2-batch equilibrium cycle are analyzed and compared for each reflector design. Numerical results show that a VLB core can be successfully designed with 24-month cycle and the cycle length is improved significantly with the alternative reflectors. The neutronic analyses are performed using the Monte Carlo Serpent code and 3-D diffusion code COREDAX-2 with the ENDF/B-VII.1.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권8호
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• pp.3059-3072
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• 2022

A Jacobian-Free Newton Krylov Two-Nodal Coarse Mesh Finite Difference algorithm based on Nodal Expansion Method (NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK) is successfully developed and proposed to solve the three-dimensional (3D) and multi-group reactor physics models. In the NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK method, the efficient JFNK method with the Modified Incomplete LU (MILU) preconditioner is integrated and applied into the discrete systems of the NEM-based two-node CMFD method by constructing the residual functions of only the nodal average fluxes and the eigenvalue. All the nonlinear corrective nodal coupling coefficients are updated on the basis of two-nodal NEM formulation including the discontinuity factor in every few newton steps. All the expansion coefficients and interface currents of the two-node NEM need not be chosen as the solution variables to evaluate the residual functions of the NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK method, therefore, the NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK method can greatly reduce the number of solution variables and the computational cost compared with the JFNK based on the conventional NEM. Finally the NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK code is developed and then analyzed by simulating the representative PWR MOX/UO₂ core benchmark, the popular NEACRP 3D core benchmark and the complicated full-core pin-by-pin homogenous core model. Numerical solutions show that the proposed NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK method with the MILU preconditioner has the good numerical accuracy and can obtain higher computational efficiency than the NEM-based two-node CMFD algorithm with the power method in the outer iteration and the Krylov method using the MILU preconditioner in the inner iteration, which indicates the NEM_TNCMFD_JFNK method can serve as a potential and efficient numerical tool for reactor neutron diffusion analysis module in the JFNK-based multiphysics coupling application.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권6호
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• pp.2230-2245
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• 2023

KANT (KAIST Advanced Nuclear Tachygraphy) is a PWR core simulator recently developed at Korea Advance Institute of Science and Technology, which solves three-dimensional steady-state and transient multigroup neutron diffusion equations under Cartesian geometries alongside the incorporation of thermal-hydraulics feedback effect for multi-physics calculation. It utilizes the standard Nodal Expansion Method (NEM) accelerated with various Coarse Mesh Finite Difference (CMFD) methods for neutronics calculation. For thermal-hydraulics (TH) calculation, a single-phase flow model and a one-dimensional cylindrical fuel rod heat conduction model are employed. The time-dependent neutronics and TH calculations are numerically solved through an implicit Euler scheme, where a detailed coupling strategy is presented in this paper alongside a description of nodal equivalence, macroscopic depletion, and pin power reconstruction. For validation of the steady, transient, and depletion calculation with pin power reconstruction capacity of KANT, solutions for various benchmark problems are presented. The IAEA 3-D PWR and 4-group KOEBERG problems were considered for the steady-state reactor benchmark problem. For transient calculations, LMW (Lagenbuch, Maurer and Werner) LWR and NEACRP 3-D PWR benchmarks were solved, where the latter problem includes thermal-hydraulics feedback. For macroscopic depletion with pin power reconstruction, a small PWR problem modified with KAIST benchmark model was solved. For validation of the multi-physics analysis capability of KANT concerning large-sized PWRs, the BEAVRS Cycle1 benchmark has been considered. It was found that KANT solutions are accurate and consistent compared to other published works.

• 분석과학
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• 제35권5호
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• pp.205-211
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• 2022

Deuterium (D) is an isotope with one more neutron number than hydrogen (H). Heavy elements rarely change their chemical properties with little effect even if the number of neutrons increases, but low-mass elements change their vibration energy, diffusion rate, and reaction rate because the effect cannot be ignored, which is called an isotope effect. Recently, in the semiconductor and display industries, there is a trend to replace hydrogen gas (H₂) with deuterium gas (D₂) in order to improve process stability and product quality by using the isotope effect. In addition, as the demand for D₂ in industries increases, domestic gas producers are making efforts to produce and supply D₂ on their own. In the case of high purity D₂, most of them are produced by electrolysis of heavy water (D₂O), and among D₂, hydrogen deuteride (HD) molecules are present as isotope impurities. Therefore, in order to maximize the isotope effect of hydrogen in the electronic industry, HD, which is an isotope impurity of D₂ used in the process, should be small amount. To this end, purity analysis of D₂ for industrial processing is essential. In this study, HD quantitative analysis of D₂ for high purity D₂ purity analysis was established and hydrogen isotope RM (Reference material) was developed. Since hydrogen isotopes are difficult to analyze with general gas analysis instrument, they were analyzed using a high-precision mass spectrometer (Gas/MS, Finnigan MAT271). High purity HD gas was injected into Gas/MS, sensitivity was determined by a signal according to pressure, and HD concentrations in two bottles of D₂ were quantified using the corresponding sensitivity. The amount fraction of HD in each D₂ was (4518 ± 275) μmol/mol, (2282 ± 144) μmol/mol. D₂, which quantifies HD amount using the developed quantitative analysis method, will be manufactured with hydrogen isotope RM and distributed for quality management and maintenance of electronic industries and gas producers in the future.