• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.97-106
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• 2018

Improved load-following capability is one of the most important technical tasks of a pressurized water reactor. Controlling the nuclear reactor core during load-following operation leads to some difficulties. These difficulties mainly arise from nuclear reactor core limitations in local power peaking: the core is subjected to sharp and large variation of local power density during transients. Axial offset (AO) is the parameter usually used to represent the core power peaking. One of the important local power peaking components in nuclear reactors is axial power peaking, which continuously changes. The main challenge of nuclear reactor control during load-following operation is to maintain the AO within acceptable limits, at a certain reference target value. This article proposes a new robust approach to AO control of pressurized water reactors during load-following operation. This method uses robust feedback-linearization control based on the multipoint kinetics reactor model (neutronic and thermal-hydraulic). In this model, the reactor core is divided into four nodes along the reactor axis. Simulation results show that this method improves the reactor load-following capability in the presence of parameter uncertainty and disturbances and can use optimum control rod groups to maneuver with variable overlapping.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.708-720
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• 2020

Core-wide temperature distribution in sodium-cooled fast reactor plays a key role in its decay heat removal process, however the prediction for temperature distribution is quite complex due to the conjugate heat transfer between the assembly flow and the inter-wrapper flow. Hybrid medium model has been proposed for conjugate heat transfer modeling in the core. The core is modeled with a Realistic modeled inter-wrapper flow and hybrid medium modeled assembly flow. To validate present model, simulations for a three-assembly model were performed with Realistic modeling, traditional porous medium model and hybrid medium model, respectively. The influences of Uniform/Non-Uniform power distribution among assemblies and the Peclet number within the assembly flow have been considered. Compared to traditional porous medium model, present model shows a better agreement with in Realistic modeling prediction of the temperature distribution and the radial heat transfer between the inter-wrapper flow and the assembly flow.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.316-320
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• 1991

The Core Operating Limit Supervisory System (COLSS) is digital computer based on-line monitoring system that is designed to assist the operator in monitoring of the Limiting Conditions for Operation. A current COLSS calculates axial power distribution based on in-core detector signals using 5th order Fourier series method. It was found that the 5th elder Fourier series method was not accurate for certain axial power shapes, especially saddle power shapes, resulting in thermal margin decrease. A cubic spline synthesis was applied to the COLSS in order to improve the axial power distribution monitoring for the various axial power shapes. The results showed that the cubic spline synthesis simulated more accurately the axial power shapes, up to 5% in RMS errors, compared to those of the Fourier series.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.05a
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• pp.57-61
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• 1997

A Canadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor core calculation was performed using lattice parameters generated by HELIOS. The HELIOS-based lattice parameters were processed by TABGEN in a form suitable for the core analysis code RFSP. The core calculation was performed and the results were compared to those of the reference calculation which uses POWDERPUFS-V (PPV) for the lattice parameter generation. The characteristics of the core calculated based on the PPV and HELIOS lattice parameters match within 0.4%$\Delta$k and 7% for the excess reactivity and the channel power distribution, respectively.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.124-128
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• 2011

This study estimated experimentally the loss distribution caused by magnetic friction in magnetic parts of a superconductor flywheel energy storage system (SFES) to obtain information for the design of high efficiency SFES. Through the spin down experiment using the manufactured vertical shaft type SFES with a journal type superconductor magnetic bearing (SMB), the coefficients of friction by the SMB, the stator core of permanent magnet synchronous motor/generator (PMSM/G), and the leakage flux of the metal parts were calculated. The coefficients of friction by the stator core of PMSM/G in case of using Si-steel and an amorphous core were calculated. The energy loss by magnetic friction in the stator core of PMSM/G was much larger than that in the other parts. The level of friction loss could be reduced dramatically using an amorphous core. Energy loss by the leakage magnetic field was small. On the other hand, the energy loss could be increased under other conditions according to the type of metal nearby the leakage magnetic fields. In manufactured SFES, the rotational loss by the amorphous core was approximately 2 times the loss of the superconductor and leakage. Moreover, the rotational loss by the Si-steel core is approximately 3~3.5 times the loss of superconductor and leakage.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.513-520
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• 2014

In this paper, three types of operational and industrial absorbers used at research reactors, including Ag-In-Cd alloy, $B_4C$, and Hf are selected for sensitivity analyses. Their integral effects on the main neutronic core parameters important to safety issues are investigated. These parameters are core excess reactivity, shutdown margin, total reactivity worth of control rods, thermal neutron flux, power density distribution, and Power Peaking Factor (PPF). The IAEA 10 MW benchmark core is selected as the case study to verify calculations. A two-dimensional, three-group diffusion model is selected for core calculations. The well-known WIMS-D4 and CITATION reactor codes are used to carry out these calculations. It is found that the largest shutdown margin is gained using the $B_4C$; also the lowest PPF is gained using the Ag-In-Cd alloy. The maximum point power densities belong to the inside fuel regions surrounding the central flux trap (irradiation position), surrounded by control fuel elements, and the peripheral fuel elements beside the graphite reflectors. The greatest and least fluctuation of the point power densities are gained by using $B_4C$ and Ag-In-Cd alloy, respectively.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.101-111
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• 2004

The main purpose of a liquid metal reactor core thermal-hydraulic design is to efficiently extract the core thermal power by distributing the appropriate sodium coolant flow according to the power distribution in the core. The thermal-hydraulic design procedure consists of the coolant flow distribution to the sub-assemblies, the coolant/fuel temperature calculations and detailed subchannel analysis. This paper describes the LMR core thermal-hydraulic design methodology and summarizes the major design and analysis results of KALIMER breeder and breakeven cores and subassemblies. KALIMER is a 150 MWe rated (392 MWth) heterogeneous core with U-TRU-Zr ternary alloy fuel and sodium coolant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.80-99
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• 2023

This paper presents the results of investigating the change in welding residual stresses of the core shroud, which is one of subcomponents in reactor vessel internals, performing finite element analysis. First, the welding residual stresses of the core shroud were calculated by applying the heat conduction based lumped pass technique and finite element elastic-plastic stress analysis. Second, the temperature distribution of the core shroud during the normal operation was calculated by performing finite element temperature analysis considering gamma heating. Third, through the finite element viscoelastic-plastic stress analysis using the calculated temperature distribution and setting the calculated residual stresses as the initial stress state, the variation of the welding residual stresses was derived according to repeating the normal operation. In the viscoelastic-plastic stress analysis, the effects of neutron irradiation on mechanical properties during the cyclic normal operations were considered by using the previously developed user subroutines for the irradiation agings such as irradiation hardening/embrittlement, irradiation-induced creep, and void swelling. Finally, the effect of neutron irradiation on the welding residual stresses was analysed for each irradiation aging. As a result, it is found that as the normal operation is repeated, the welding residual stresses decrease and show insignificant magnitudes after the 10^th refueling cycle. In addition, the irradiation-induced creep/void swelling has significant mitigation effect on the residual stresses whereas the irradiation hardening/embrittlement has no effect on those.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.2785-2796
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• 2023

How to generate the precise broad group cross section is important for the fast reactor design. In this study, a fast reactor multi-group cross-section generation code MGGC2.0 are developed in-house for processing ultrafine group MATXS format library. Validation and verification are performed for MGGC2.0 code by applying the benchmarks of ICSBEP handbook, and the results of MGGC2.0 agree well with that of MCNP. The consistent P_N method with critical buckling search is in good agreement that condensed with TWODANT flux and flux moment for the inner core and outer core region. For the radial blanket and reflector, two region approximation method has been applied in MGGC2.0 by using collision Probability Method neutron flux solver. The RBEC-M benchmark was used to verify the power distribution calculation, and the relative error of power distribution comparison with the reference are less than 0.8% in the fuel region and the maximum relative error is 5.58% in the reflector region. Therefore, the precise broad cross section can be generated by MGGC2.0 for fast reactor.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.309-314
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• 1996

Feasibility study has been accomplished to evaluate the effectiveness of the in-vessel core debris cooling through lower cavity flooding using two dimensional finite difference scheme. The volume of cerium pool and decay power rate generated in corium pool were evaluated as important parameters to the temperature distribution on the reactor vessel lower head through previous works. In this study, the corium volume based on the System 80＋ core structure and time dependent decay power rate are considered for feasibility evaluation. In addition, preliminary plans for the in-vessel core debris cooling through lower cavity flooding as severe accident management strategy, i.e. flooding timing, method and capacity, are suggested based on the result of the numerical study, international tendency related to in-vessel core debris cooling through lower cavity flooding.