• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.7
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• pp.591-618
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• 2006

An integrated R&D program is being conducted to study, qualify, and in some cases, develop materials with required properties for the reactor systems being developed as part the U.S. Department of Energy's Generation IV Reactor Program. The goal of the program is to ensure that the materials research and development (R&D) needed to support Gen IV applications will comprise a comprehensive and integrated effort to identify and provide the materials data and its interpretation needed for the design and construction of the selected advanced reactor concepts. The major materials issues for the five primary systems that have been considered within the U.S. Gen IV Reactor Program-very high temperature gas-cooled, supercritical water-cooled, gas-cooled fast spectrum, lead-cooled fast spectrum, and sodium-cooled fast spectrum reactors-are described along with the R&D that has been identified to address them.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.520-525
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• 2003

Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) is a 40MW (thermal) / 13.2MW (electrical), Plutonium - Uranium mixed carbide fuelled, sodium cooled, loop type nuclear reactor operating at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam. Its main aim is to generate experience in operation of fast reactors and sodium systems and to serve as an irradiation facility for development of fuels and structural materials fur fast reactors. Nuclear reactors pose difficulties to the NDT techniques used to monitor the conditions of the internal components. Sodium cooled fast breeder reactors have their own typical difficulties in using the NDT techniques. These are due to the need for operation in aggressive environment of nuclear radiation and sodium (molten/vapour), as well as the need to maintain leak tightness of a very high order during all states of reactor operation and shutdown for fuel handling, maintenance and remote inspection. This paper discusses the following NDT techniques, which have been successfully used for the past 15 years in FBTR: (i) Periscope and Projector, (ii) Core Co-ordinate Measuring Device and, (iii) Optical fiberscope. The inspection using these techniques have given confidence for further reactor operation at high power by giving useful data on the conditions of the components inside the reactor vessel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.1380-1385
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• 2020

An annular linear induction electromagnetic pump (ALIP) which has a developed pressure of 0.76 bar and a flow rate of 100 L/min is designed to analysis end effect which is main problem to use ALIP in thermohydraulic system of the prototype generation-IV sodium-cooled fast reactor (PGSFR). Because there is no moving part which is directly in contact with the liquid, such as the impeller of a mechanical pump, an ALIP is one of the best options for transporting sodium, considering the high temperature and reactivity of liquid sodium. For the analysis of an ALIP, some of the most important characteristics are the electromagnetic properties such as the magnetic field, current density, and the Lorentz force. These electromagnetic properties not only affect the performance of an ALIP, but they additionally influence the end effect. The end effect is caused by distortion to the electromagnetic field at both ends of an ALIP, influencing both the flow stability and developed pressure. The electromagnetic field distribution in an ALIP is analyzed in this study by solving Maxwell's equations and using numerical analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2015

Four recycling scenarios involving pyroprocessing of spent fuel (SF) have been investigated for a 600-MWe transmutation sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), KALIMER. Performance evaluation was done with code system REBUS connected with TRANSX and TWODANT. Scenario Number 1 is the pyroprocessing of Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) SF. Because the recycling of CANDU SF does not have any safety problems, the CANDU-Pyro-SFR system will be possible if the pyroprocessing capacity is large enough. Scenario Number 2 is a feasibility test of feed SF from a pressurized water reactor PWR. Thefsensitivity of cooling time before prior to pyro-processing was studied. As the cooling time sensitivity of cooling time before prior to pyro-processing was studied. As the cooling time increases, excess reactivity at the beginning of the equilibrium cycle (BOEC) decreases, thereby creating advantageous reactivity control and improving the transmutation performance of minor actinides. Scenario Number 3 is a case study for various levels of recovery factors of transuranic isotopes (TRUs). If long-lived fission products can be separated during pyroprocessing, the waste that is not recovered is classified as low- and intermediate-level waste, and it is sufficient to be disposed of in an underground site due to very low-heat-generation rate when the waste cooling time becomes >300 years at a TRU recovery factor of 99.9%. Scenario Number 4 is a case study for the recovery factor of rare earth (RE) isotopes. The RE isotope recovery factor should be lowered to ${\leq}20%$ in order to make sodium void reactivity less than <7$, which is the design limit of a metal fuel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.1677-1688
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• 2020

In the sodium-cooled fast reactor, the steam generator is a heat exchange device between sodium and water, which may cause leakage, resulting in a sodium-water reaction accident, which in turn affects the safe operation of the entire nuclear reactor. To this end, the electromagnetic vortex flowmeter is used to detect leakage of the steam generator and its signal processing method is studied in this paper. The hydraulic experiment was carried out by using water instead of liquid sodium, and the sensor output signal of the electromagnetic vortex flowmeter under different gas injection volumes was collected. The bubble noise signal is reflected by the base line of the sensor output signal. According to the relationship between the proportion of the bubble noise signal in the sensor output signal and the gas injection volume, a signal processing method based on the energy ratio calculation is proposed to detect whether the water contains bubbles. The gas injection experiment of liquid sodium was conducted to verify the effectiveness of the signal processing method in the detection of bubbles in sodium, and the minimum detectable leak rate of water in the steam generator was detected to be 0.2 g/s.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.21-27
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• 2008

The reactor head of a sodium-cooled fast reactor KALIMER-600 should be cooled during the reactor operation in order to maintain the integrity of sealing material and to prevent a creep fatigue. Analyzing turbulent natural convection flow in the cover gas region of reactor vessel with the commercial CFD code CFX10.0, the cooling requirement for the reactor head and the performance of the insulation plate were assessed. The results showed that the high temperature region around reactor vessel was caused by the convective heat transfer of Helium gas flow ascending the gap between the insulation plate and the reactor vessel inner wall. The insulation plate was shown to sufficiently block the radiative heat transfer from pool surface to reactor head to a satisfactory degree. More than $32.5m^3$/sec of cooling air flow rate was predicted to maintain the required temperature of reactor head.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.407-412
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• 2014

In this research, we investigated the burnup characteristics and the conversion of fertile $^{232}Th$ into fissile $^{233}U$ in the core of a Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR). The SFR fuel assemblies were designed for burning $^{232}Th$ fuel (fuel pin 1) and $^{233}U$ fuel (fuel pin 2) and include mixed minor actinide compositions. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using Serpent Code1.1.19 to compare with CRAM (Chebyshev Rational Approximation Method) and TTA (Transmutation Trajectory Analysis) method in the burnup calculation mode. The total heating power generated in the system was assumed to be 2000 MWth. During the reactor operation period of 600 days, the effective multiplication factor (keff) was between 0.964 and 0.954 and peaking factor is 1.88867.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.535-542
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• 2012

A sodium-cooled demonstration fast reactor with the KALIMER-600 as a reference plant is under design by KAERI. The safety grade decay heat removal system (DHRS), which is important to mitigate design basis accidents, was changed in the reactor design. A loss of heat sink and a vessel leak in design basis accidents were simulated using the MARS-LMR system transient analysis code on two plant systems. In the analyses, the DHRS of KALIMER-600 had a weakness due to elevation of the overflow path for the DHRS operation, while it was proved that the DHRS of the demonstration reactor had superior heat transfer characteristics due to the simplified heat transfer mechanism.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.111-120
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• 2021

During the core disruptive accident (CDA) of sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), the molten fuel and steel are solidified into debris particles, which form debris bed in the lower plenum. When the boiling occurs inside debris bed, the flow of coolant and vapor makes the debris particles relocated and the bed flattened, which called debris bed relocation. Because the thickness of debris bed has great influence on the cooling ability of fuel debris in low plenum, it's very necessary to evaluate the transient changes of the shape and thickness in relocation behavior for CDA simulation analysis. To simulate relocation behavior, a large number of debris bed relocation experiments were carried out by improved bottom gas-injection experimental method in this paper. The effects of different experimental factors on the relocation process were studied from the experiments. The experimental data were also used to further evaluate a semi-empirical onset model for predicting relocation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1747-1755
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• 2021

This paper presents floating absorber for safety at transient (FAST) which is a passive safety device for sodium-cooled fast reactors with a positive coolant temperature coefficient. Working principle of the FAST makes it possible to insert negative reactivity passively in case of temperature rise or voiding of coolant. Behaviors of the FAST in conventional oxide fuel-loaded and metallic fuel-loaded SFRs are investigated assuming anticipated transients without scram (ATWS) scenarios. Unprotected loss of flow (ULOF), unprotected loss of heat sink (ULOHS), unprotected transient overpower (UTOP) and unprotected chilled inlet temperature (UCIT) scenarios are simulated at end of life (EOL) conditions of the oxide and the metallic SFR cores, and performance of the FAST to improve the reactor safety is analyzed in terms of reactivity feedback components, reactor power and maximum temperatures of fuel and coolant. It is shown that FAST is able to improve the safety margin of conventional burner-type SFRs during ULOF, ULOHS, UTOP and UCIT.