The management of long-lived radionuclides in spent fuel is a key issue to achieve the closed nuclear fuel cycle and the sustainable development of nuclear energy. The partitioning-transmutation method is supposed to efficiently treat the long-lived radionuclides. Accordingly, the transmutation of long-lived minor actinides (MAs) is significant for the postprocessing of spent fuel. In the present work, the transmutations in pressurized water reactor (PWR) mixed oxide (MOX) fuel are investigated through the Monte Carlo neutron transport method. Two types of MAs are homogeneously incorporated into MOX fuel assembly with different mixing ratios. In addition, two types of design of semihomogeneous loading of 237 Np in MOX fuels are studied. The results indicate an overall nice efficiency of transmutation in PWR with MOX fuel, especially for 237 Np and 241 Am, which are primarily generated in the current uranium oxide fuel. In addition, the transmutation efficiency of 237 Np is excellent, while its inclusion has no much influence on other MAs. The flattening of power and burnup are achieved by semihomogeneous loading of MAs. The uncertainties of Monte Carlo method are negligible, while those due to nuclear data change little the conclusions of the transmutation of MAs. The transmutation of MAs in MOX fuel is expected to be an efficient method for spent fuel management.

Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI) has been studying seismic risk analysis for nuclear power plant for a long time, and completed seismic margin analysis for several plants. After Fukushima accident, seismic risk has drawn an increasing attention worldwide, and the regulatory body in China has also required the utilities to conduct a detailed analysis for seismic risk. So, we turned our focus on a more intensive study of seismic probabilistic safety assessment (PSA/PRA) for nuclear power plant in recent years. Since quantification of seismic risk is a key part in Seismic PSA, lots of efforts have been devoted to its research by SNERDI. The quantification tool is the main product of this research, and will be discussed in detail in this paper. First, a brief introduction to Seismic PSA quantification methodology is presented in this paper, including fragility analysis on system or plant level, convolution of seismic hazard curves and fragility curves, and uncertainty analysis as well. To derive more accurate quantification results, the binary decision diagram (BDD) algorithm was introduced into the quantification process, which effectively reduces the deficiency of the conventional method on coping with large probability events and negated logic. Finally, this paper introduced the development of the seismic PSA quantification tool based on the algorithms discussed in this paper. Tests and application have been made for this software based on a specific nuclear power plant seismic PSA model.

The so-called in-vessel retention (IVR) was considered as a severe accident management strategy and had been certified by Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in U.S. as a standard measure for severe accident management since 1996. In the core meltdown accident, the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) integrity should be ensured during the prescribed time of 72 h. However, in traditional concept of IVR, several factors that affect the RPV failure were not considered in the structural safety assessment, including the effect of corium crust on the RPV failure. Actually, the crust strength is of significant importance in the context of a severe reactor accident in which molten core material melts through the reactor vessel and collects on the lower head (LH) of the RPV. Consequently, the RPV integrity is significantly influenced by the crust. A strong, coherent crust anchored to the RPV walls could allow the yet-molten corium to fall away from the crust as it erodes the RPV, therefore thermally decoupling the melt pool from the coolant and sharply reducing the cooling rate. Due to the thermal resistance of the crust layer, it somewhat prevents further attack of melt pool from the RPV. In the present study, the effect of crust on RPV structural behaviors was examined under multilayered crust formation conditions with consideration of detailed thermal characteristics, such as high-temperature gradient across the wall thickness. Thereafter, systematic finite element analyses and subsequent damage evaluation with varying parameters were performed on a representative RPV to figure out the possibility of high temperature induced failures with the effect of crust layer.

The intercooled cycle (IC) is a simplified novel proposal for generation IV nuclear power plants (NPP) based on studies demonstrating efficiencies of over 45%. As an alternative to the simple cycle recuperated (SCR) and the intercooled cycle recuperated (ICR), the main difference in configuration is no recuperator, which reduces its size. It is expected that the components of the IC will not operate at optimum part power due to seasonal changes in ambient temperature and grid prioritization for renewable sources. Thus, the ability to demonstrate viable part load performance becomes an important requirement. The main objective of this study is to derive off-design points (ODPs) for a temperature range of −35 °C to 50 °C and core outlet temperatures (COTs) between 750 °C and 1000 °C. The ODPs have been calculated using a tool designed for this study. Based on the results, the intercooler changes the mass flow rate and compressor pressure ratio (PR). However, a drop of ∼9% in plant efficiency, in comparison to the ICR (6%) was observed for pressure losses of up to 5%. The reactor pressure losses for IC have the lowest effect on plant cycle efficiency in comparison to the SCR and ICR. Characteristic maps are created to support first-order calculations. It is also proposed to consider the intercooler pressure loss as a handle for ODP performance. The analyses brings attention to the IC an alternative cycle and aids development of cycles for generation IV NPPs specifically gas-cooled fast reactors (GFRs) and very-high-temperature reactors (VHTRs), using helium.

In an emergency condition of nuclear power plant, operators have to mitigate the accident in order to remove the decay heat and to prevent the release of radioactive material to the environment following the emergency operating procedures (EOPs). The action of operators on a component, for example, changing the parameter level of a component, which is described in a procedure step, will impact other components of the plant and the plant behavior. Nowadays, the advanced main control rooms have been equipped with the computer-based procedures (CBPs) which provide some features and benefits which are not available in paper-based procedures. However, most of CBPs do not provide information of the impact of the counteractions on each procedure step (components influenced and future plant behavior) although it is useful for operators to understand the purpose of the procedure steps before making decisions and taking the actions. This paper discusses the functional information and the method to generate the information using multilevel flow modeling (MFM) model of operator actions on some procedure steps of a simplified EOP of pressurized water reactor (PWR) plant, as an example.

In this study, the applicability of Monte Carlo code particle and heavy ion transport code system (PHITS) [Sato et al. (2013, “Particle and Heavy Ion Transport Code System PHITS, Version 2.52,” J. Nucl. Sci. Technol., 50 (9), pp. 913–923)] to the equipment design of sampler and detector in the radiation monitoring system was evaluated by comparing calculation results with experimental results obtained by actual measurements of radioactive materials. In modeling a simulation configuration, reproducing the energy distribution of beta-ray emitted from specific nuclide by means of Fermi Function was performed as well as geometric arrangement of the detector in the sampler volume. The reproducing and geometric arrangement proved that the calculation results are in excellent matching with actual experimental results. Moreover, reproducing the Gaussian energy distribution to the radiation energy deposition was performed according to experimental results obtained by the multi-channel analyzer. Through the modeling and the Monte Carlo simulation, key parameters for equipment design were identified and evaluated. Based on the results, it was confirmed that the Monte Carlo simulation is capable of supporting the evaluation of the equipment design.

Accident tolerant fuels (ATF) and steam generator (SG) auxiliary feedwater (AFW) extended operation are two important methods to increase the coping time for nuclear power plant safety response. In light of recent efforts to investigate such methods, we investigate both FeCrAl cladding oxidation kinetics and SG AFW sensitivity analyses, for the Surry nuclear power plant Short-Term Station Blackout simulation using the MELCOR YR 1.8.6 systems code. The first part describes the effects of FeCrAl cladding oxidation kinetics. Zircaloy cladding and two different oxidation models of FeCrAl cladding are compared. The initial hydrogen generation time (>0.5 kg) is used as the evaluation criterion for fuel degradation in a severe accident. Results showed that the more recent oxidation correlation by ORNL predicts much less hydrogen generation than Zircaloy cladding. The second part investigates the effects of three different methods of AFW injection into the SG secondary side. We considered three different methods of water injection; i.e., constant water injection into the secondary side (case 1); water injection based on secondary side water level in boiler region (case 2); water injection based on secondary side water level in the downcomer region (case 3). The case of constant water injection is the most straightforward, but it would have the tendency to overfill the SG with excess water. Water injection with downcomer level control is more reasonable but requires DC power to monitor level and to control AFW injection rate.

The continuous generation of graphite dust particles in the core of a high-temperature reactor (HTR) is one of the key challenges of safety during its operation. The graphite dust particles emerge from relative movements between the fuel elements or from contact to the graphitic reflector structure and could be contaminated by diffused fission products from the fuel elements. They are distributed from the reactor core to the entire reactor coolant system. In case of a depressurization accident, a release of the contaminated dust into the confinement is possible. In addition, the contaminated graphite dust can decrease the life cycle of the coolant system due to chemical interactions. On one hand, the knowledge of the behavior of graphite dust particles under HTR conditions using helium as the flow medium is a key factor to develop an effective filter system for the discussed issue. On the other hand, it also provides a possibility to access the activity distribution in the reactor. The behavior can be subdivided into short-term effects like transport, deposition, remobilization and long-term effects like reactions with material surfaces. The Technische Universität Dresden has installed a new high-temperature test facility to study the short-term effects of deposition of graphite dust particles. The flow channel has a length of 5 m and a tube diameter of 0.05 m. With helium as the flow medium, the temperature can be up to 950 °C in the channel center and 120 °C on the sample surface, the Reynolds number can be varied from 150 up to 1000. The particles get dispersed into the accelerated and heated flow medium in the flow channel. Next, the aerosol is passing a 3 m long adiabatic section to ensure homogenous flow conditions. After passing the flow straightener, it enters the optically accessible measurement path made from quartz glass. In particular, this test facility offers the possibility to analyze the influence of the thermophoretic effect separately. For this, an optionally cooled sample can be placed in the measuring area. The thickness of the particle layer on the sample is estimated with a three-dimensional laser scanning microscope. The particle concentration above the sample is measured with an aerosol particle sizer (APS). Particle image velocimetry (PIV) detects the flow-velocity field and provides data to estimate the shear velocity. In combination with the measured temperature-field, all necessary information for the calculation of the particle deposition and particle relaxation times are available. The measurements are compared to results of theoretical works from the literature. The experimental database is relevant especially for computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-developers, for model development, and model verification. A wide range of phenomena like particle separation, local agglomeration of particles with a specific particle mass, and selective remobilization can be explained in this way. Thus, this work contributes to a realistic analysis of nuclear safety.

Subchannel thermal-hydraulics program named CORe thermal-hydraulics (CORTH) and assembly lattice calculation program named KYLIN2 have been developed in Nuclear Power Institute of China (NPIC). For the sake of promoting the efficiencies of these programs and achieving the better description on fined parameters of reactor, programs' linear systems and details are interpreted and parallelized. Test results show that the calculation efficiencies of linear systems occupy a large proportion of according serial computation. Based on the analysis, both programs' efficiencies are improved greatly through the proposed distributed-memory parallel strategy.

The present experimental investigation in a scaled facility of an Indian pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) is focused on the heat transfer behavior from the calandria vessel (CV) to the calandria vault during a prolonged severe accident condition in the presence of decay heat. The transient heat transfer simulates the conditions from single phase to boiling in the calandria vault water, partial uncovery of the CV due to boil off of water in the vault, and refill of calandria vault. Molten borosilicate glass was used as the simulant due to its comparable heat transfer characteristics similar to prototypic material. About 60 kg of the molten material was poured into the test section at about 1100 °C. Decay heat in the melt pool was simulated by using high watt cartridge type heaters. The temperature distributions inside the molten pool across the CV wall thickness and vault water were measured for prolonged period which can be divided into various phases, viz., single phase natural convection heat transfer in calandria vault, boiling heat transfer in calandria vault, partial uncovery of CV, and refilling calandria vault. Experimental results showed that once the crust formed, the inner vessel temperature remained very low and vessel integrity maintained. Even boiling of calandria vault water and uncovery of CV had negligible effect on melt, CV, and vault water temperature. The heat transfer coefficients on outer vessel surface were obtained and compared with various conditions.

This study investigates the reactor core physical properties of the AP1000 ® , which applies the MCNP4a program to model the AP1000 reactor core with the parameters and data from the design control document (DCD, Rev. 19) of the AP1000 Nuclear Power Plant, which has been submitted to the nuclear regulatory commission (NRC). The model is applied to calculate and verify the physical parameters of AP1000 core design. The results match well with the design values in the DCD of the AP1000 nuclear power plant. The model will be modified according to the actual reactor core arrangement, such as AP1000 reactors at China's Sanmen and Haiyang sites, and then compared with the commissioning test results in the future.

Evaluation of fuel debris properties in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (1F) is required to develop fuel debris removal tools. In the removal of debris resulting from the Three Mile Island unit 2 (TMI-2) accident, a core-boring system played an important role. Considering the working principle of core boring, hardness, elastic modulus, and fracture toughness were found to be important fuel debris properties that profoundly influenced the performance of the boring machine. It is speculated that uranium and zirconium oxide solid solution (U,Zr)O 2 is one of the major materials in the fuel debris from 1F. In addition, the Zr content of the fuel debris from 1F is expected to be higher than that of the debris from TMI-2 because the 1F reactors were boiling-water reactors. In this research, the mechanical properties of cubic (U,Zr)O 2 samples containing 10%–65% ZrO 2 are evaluated. The hardness, elastic modulus, and fracture toughness are measured by the Vickers test, ultrasonic pulse echo method, and indentation fracture method, respectively. In the case of (U,Zr)O 2 samples containing less than 50% ZrO 2 , Vickers hardness and fracture toughness increased, and the elastic modulus decreased slightly with increasing ZrO 2 content. Moreover, all of those values of the (U,Zr)O 2 samples containing 65% ZrO 2 increased slightly compared to (U,Zr)O 2 samples containing 55% ZrO 2 . ZrO 2 content affects fracture toughness significantly in the case of samples containing less than 10% ZrO 2 . Higher Zr content (exceeding 50%) has little effect on the mechanical properties.

This work focuses on the effect of dissolved oxygen concentration in liquid lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) on the onset of dissolution corrosion in a solution-annealed 316 L austenitic stainless steel. Specimens made of the same 316 L stainless steel heat were exposed for 1000 h at 450 °C to static liquid LBE with controlled concentrations of dissolved oxygen, i.e., 10 −5 , 10 −6 , and 10 −7 mass%. The corroded 316 L steel specimens were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). A complete absence of dissolution corrosion was observed in the steel specimens exposed to liquid LBE with 10 −5 and 10 −6 mass% oxygen. In the same specimens, isolated “islands” of FeCr-containing oxides were also detected, indicating the localized onset of oxidation corrosion under these exposure conditions. On the other hand, dissolution corrosion with a maximum depth of 59 μ m was detected in the steel specimen exposed to liquid LBE with 10 −7 mass% oxygen. This suggests that the threshold oxygen concentration associated with the onset of dissolution corrosion in this 316 L steel heat lies between 10 −6 and 10 −7 mass% oxygen for the specific exposure conditions (i.e., 1000 h, 450 °C, static liquid LBE).

In a natural circulation boiling water reactor (BWR), the core power varies in both axial and radial directions inside the reactor core. The variation along the axial direction is more or less constant throughout the reactor; however, there exists variation of reactor power in the radial direction. The channels located at the periphery have low power compared to the center of the core and are equipped with orifices at their inlet. This creates nonuniformity in the radial direction in the core. This study has been performed in order to understand the effect of this radial variation of power on the stability characteristics of the reactor. Four channels of a pressure tube type natural circulation BWR have been considered. The reactor has been modeled using RELAP5/MOD 3.2. Before using the model, it was first benchmarked with experimental measurements and then the characteristics of both low power and high power oscillations, respectively, known as type-I and type-II instability, have been investigated. It was observed that the type-I instability shows slight destabilizing effect of increase in power variation among different channels. However, in the case of type-II instability, it was found out that the oscillations get damped with an increase in power variation among the channels. A similar effect was found for the presence of orifices at the inlet in different channels. However, the increase in number of orificed channels showed stabilizing effect for both type-I and type-II instabilities.

The transient reactor test facility (TREAT), a graphite moderated experimental reactor, is scheduled to restart in late 2017. There is now renewed interest in development of capabilities to model and simulate the TREAT transients using three-dimensional coupled physics. To validate existing transient analysis tools as well as those under development, several temperature-limited transients have been modeled and analyzed. These transients are from the M8 calibration (M8CAL) experiment series, a set of experiments performed to calibrate the reactor detectors for the planned M8 series of fuel tests. Detailed reactor models were prepared that were then used to calculate the pretransient and post-transient k eff values as well as corresponding reactivity insertions. Alterations to modeled values of shutdown and initial transient rod insertion depths were made to better match the reported experimental values of reactivity insertions assuming just critical pretransient states. It was found that two of the altered media inputs, fuel and Zircaloy-3 cladding, had significant effects on the k eff . In addition, increasing shutdown rod insertion by 3–5 cm and decreasing initial transient rod insertion by 1–2 cm gave perfect pretransient k eff and total reactivity insertion values. However, the revised positions are as much as a factor of 3–20 different from reported uncertainty of 0.762 cm. This suggests that boron concentration uncertainties may play a significant role in accurately modeling the TREAT transients and should be investigated thoroughly.

In this paper, a new technique to handle solid radioactive materials inside a liquid matrix is presented. The conceptual design of the device profits of the experience and know-how gained in decontamination procedures. The proposed system makes use of an ejector for the suction of a water-highly radioactive swarf mixture from the purifier pool of the Italian E. Fermi nuclear power plant (NPP) and moving it in a suitable container for the subsequent conditioning. A dedicated circuit with an ejector to demonstrate the feasibility of the method was realized. A minimum inlet flow rate was found to have swarf suction. The feasibility of the method was demonstrated, even if it is required to homogenize the inlet mixture to avoid swarf packing conditions inside the ejector.

A VTT Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 (1F3) method for estimation of liquids and consequences of releases (MELCOR) model was modified to simulate the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 (1F2) accident. Five simulations were performed using different modeling approaches. The model 1F2 v1 includes only the basic modifications to reproduce the 1F2 accident. The model 1F2 v2 includes the same modifications used in 1F2 v1 plus the wet well (WW) improvement. In the 1F2 v3 model, the reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC) system logic was modified to avoid the use of tabular functions for the mass flow inlet and outlet. Because of this analysis, it is concluded that there is a strong dependency on parameters that still have many uncertainties, such as the RCIC two-phase flow operation, the alternative water injection, the suppression pool (SP) behavior, the rupture disk behavior and the containment failure modes, which affect the final state of the reactor core.

Point reactor neutron kinetics equations describe the time-dependent neutron density variation in a nuclear reactor core. These equations are widely applied to nuclear system numerical simulation and nuclear power plant operational control. This paper analyzes the characteristics of ten different basic or normal methods to solve the point reactor neutron kinetics equations. The accuracy after introducing different kinds of reactivity, stiffness of methods, and computational efficiency are analyzed. The calculation results show that: considering both the accuracy and stiffness, implicit Runge–Kutta method and Hermite method are more suitable for solution on these given conditions. The explicit Euler method is the fastest, while the power series method spends the most computational time.

The realistic study of dynamic accident context is an invaluable tool to address the uncertainties and their impact on safety assessment and management. The capacities of the performance evaluation of teamwork (PET) procedure for dynamic context quantification and determination of alternatives, coordination, and monitoring of human performance and decision-making are discussed in this paper. The procedure is based on a thorough description of symptoms during the accident scenario progressions with the use of thermo-hydraulic (TH) model and severe accident (SA) codes ( melcor and maap ). The opportunities of PET procedure for context quantification are exemplified for the long-term station blackout (LT SBO) accident scenario at Fukushima Daiichi #1 and a hypothetic unmitigated LT SBO at peach bottom #1 boiling water reactor (BWR) reactor nuclear power plants (NPPs). The context quantification of these LT SBO scenarios is based on the IAEA Fukushima Daiichi accident report, “State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analysis” and TH calculations made by using maap code at the EC Joint Research Centre.