Various Design Aspects of the Canadian Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor Core

The Canadian Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR) is a 1200 MW(e) channel-type nuclear reactor. The reactor core includes 336 vertical pressurized fuel channels immersed in a low-pressure heavy water moderator and calandria vessel containment. The supercritical water (SCW) coolant flows into the fuel channels through a common inlet plenum and exits through a common outlet header. One of the main features of the Canadian SCWR concept is the high-pressure (25 MPa) and high-temperature (350°C at the inlet, 625°C at the outlet) operating conditions that result in an estimated thermal efficiency of 48%. This is significantly higher than the thermal efficiency of the present light water reactors, which is about 33%. This paper presents a description of the Canadian SCWR core design concept; various numerical analyses performed to understand the temperature, flow, and stress distributions of various core components; and how the analyses results provided input for improved concept development.