High temperature gas-cooled reactors

Takeda, Tetsuaki*; Inagaki, Yoshiyuki; Aihara, Jun; Aoki, Takeshi; Fujiwara, Yusuke; Fukaya, Yuji; Goto, Minoru; Ho, H. Q.; Iigaki, Kazuhiko; Imai, Yoshiyuki; et al.

High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors; JSME Series in Thermal and Nuclear Power Generation, Vol.5, 464 Pages, 2021/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/C2018-0-05383-9

As a general overview of the research and development of a High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) in JAEA, this book describes the achievements by the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) on the designs, key component technologies such as fuel, reactor internals, high temperature components, etc., and operational experience such as rise-to-power tests, high temperature operation at 950C, safety demonstration tests, etc. In addition, based on the knowledge of the HTTR, the development of designs and component technologies such as high performance fuel, helium gas turbine and hydrogen production by IS process for commercial HTGRs are described. These results are very useful for the future development of HTGRs. This book is published as one of a series of technical books on fossil fuel and nuclear energy systems by the Power Energy Systems Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Fuel and core design studies on metal fuel sodium-cooled fast reactor (4), (5) and (6); Joint research report for JFY2009 - 2012

Uematsu, Mari Mariannu; Sugino, Kazuteru; Kawashima, Katsuyuki; Okano, Yasushi; Yamaji, Akifumi; Naganuma, Masayuki; Oki, Shigeo; Okubo, Tsutomu; Ota, Hirokazu*; Ogata, Takanari*; et al.

JAEA-Research 2012-041, 126 Pages, 2013/02

JAEA-Research-2012-041.pdf:16.49MB

The characteristics of sodium-cooled metal fuel core compared to MOX fuel core are given by its higher heavy metal density and superior neutron economy. By taking advantage of these characteristics and allowing flexibility in metal fuel specification and core design conditions as sodium void reactivity and bundle pressure drop, core design with high burnup, high breeding ratio and low fuel inventory features will be achievable. On ground of the major achievements in metal fuels utilization as driver fuels in sodium fast reactors in U.S., the metal fuel core concept is selected as a possible alternative of MOX fuel core concept in FaCT project. This report describes the following items as a result of the joint study on "Reactor core and fuel design of metal fuel core of sodium-cooled fast reactor" conducted by JAEA and CRIEPI during 4 years from fiscal year 2009 to 2012.

Development of the 4S and related technologies, 7; Summary of the FCA XXIII experiment analyses towards evaluation of prediction accuracies for the 4S core characteristics

Ueda, Nobuyuki*; Fukushima, Masahiro; Okajima, Shigeaki; Takeda, Toshikazu*; Kitada, Takanori*; Nauchi, Yasushi*; Kinoshita, Izumi*; Matsumura, Tetsuo*

Proceedings of 2009 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP '09) (CD-ROM), p.9493_1 - 9493_9, 2009/05

A series of critical experiments were carried out in the JAEA fast critical facility (FCA) named FCA XXIII cores with placing emphases on the reflector reactivity worth and the sodium void reactivity which are especially important from the view point of safety features of the 4S. The analyses of those physics mockup experiments have been carried out by the neutron transport calculation methods with continuous energy Monte Carlo code MVP and 70 energy-group discrete ordinate P0-S8 transport code DANTSYS using libraries processed from JENDL-3.3 data file. The results showed that combination of the stochastic and deterministic transport calculation methods (Monte Carlo and Sn) provided good prediction bases for criticality, reflector worth, sodium void reactivity, reaction rate ratios and absorber reactivity worth for the 4S nuclear design.

Verification of the plant dynamics analytical code CERES using the results of the plant trip test of the prototype fast breeder reactor MONJU

Nishi, Yoshihisa*; Ueda, Nobuyuki*; Kinoshita, Izumi*; Miyakawa, Akira; Kato, Mitsuya*

Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-14) (CD-ROM), 10 Pages, 2006/07

CERES is plant system analysis code for LMRs developed by the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI). CERES has a function of calculating multidimensional flow in the plena of a coolant in addition to that in one-dimensional plant network calculation. To verify the CERES code, analyses were performed by using the result of the plant trip test from the partial power operation of the prototype FBR "MONJU" that had been executed in December, 1995. The verification work was performed as a joint research of CRIEPI and JAEA. (1)Analysis concerning the primary/secondary/auxiliary cooling system (the plenum in the reactor vessel (R/V) is modeled in R-Z 2-dimension). (2)Analysis concerning the flow pattern in the plenum of R/V (the plenum is modeled in 3-dimension). (3)Analysis concerning the flow pattern inside the IHX plenum (the plenum in the IHX is modeled in 3-dimension). Analytical results by the CERES code showed good agreement with the results of the test of the "MONJU". Fundamental abilities of the CERES as a plant dynamics calculation code had been verified through these analyses. Additionally, some characteristic flows in plena of "MONJU" became clear by these analyses.

Study on countermeasures for the elimination of re-criticality issue for the sodium cooled reactors; Results of the Studies in 2003

Kubo, Shigenobu; Tobita, Yoshiharu; Kawada, Kenichi; Onoda, Yuichi; Sato, Ikkenn; Kamiyama, Kenji; Ueda, Nobuyuki*; Fujita, Satoshi; Niwa, Hajime

JNC TN9400 2004-041, 135 Pages, 2004/07

JNC-TN9400-2004-041.pdf:17.3MB

This report shows the results of the study on countermeasures for the elimination of re-criticality issue for the sodium cooled reactors, which was conducted in 2003 as a part of the feasibility study phase II for the commercialization of fast reactors. A sort of analytical studies related to the in-vessel retention capability under the unprotected loss of flow condition was conducted for the large scale and medium scale sodium cooled reactors, aiming at establishing some promising concepts to resolve the re-criticality issue keeping consistency with the basic concept of the core and plant design. Major conclusions are as follows. ABLE concept, which is proposed as a measure to enhance the fuel discharge capability in the early transition phase, needs much time to initiate fuel discharge than wrapper tube failure. Therefore it is currently concluded that it is difficult to show clear perspective. A modified version of FAIDUS which has less drawbacks on the core and cycle performance and related R&Ds than original FAIDUS was proposed for further study. In-place retention and cooling in the core region is important from view point of reduction of R&D loads conceming post accident material relocation and cooling at the bottom of the reactor vessel. A possibility of which the in-vessel retention can be achieved by quantitatively clarifying the effect of the superior cooling potential of sodium was shown. Based on the currently available information related to FAIDUS and ABLE, possible candidates of experimental studies were shown. An initiating phase analysis for the metallic fuel core with 550C of core outlet temperature and 8 of sodium void worth resulted in mild consequence without prompt criticality. Although there is still large uncertainty in the early transition phase, it might be possible to avoid severe re-criticality. And it was shown that power excursion due to molten fuel sloshing might be milder than that of MOX fuel case.

Thermal-Hydraulic investigation on severaI fast reactor design concepts

Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Sakai, Takaaki; ; Yamaguchi, Akira; Nishi, Yoshihisa*; Ueda, Nobuyuki*; *

JNC TN9400 2000-077, 223 Pages, 1999/05

JNC-TN9400-2000-077.pdf:6.24MB

The feasibility study (Phase l) is being carried out at JNC to build up new design concepts of practical fast reactors (FRs) from the viewpoint of economy, safety, effective use of resources, reduction of environmental burden and non-proliferation. This report describes the results of the investigation, related to decay heat removal, core/fuel-assembly thermal-hydraulics and thermal-hydraulic correlations, that was performed in fiscal l999 as a part of the feasibility study. ln the study of the decay heat removal, the effects of several design parameters on the performance of the reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system (RVACS) in a middle-scale sodium-cooled FR were clarified by using a plant dynamic analysis code. The upper limit of RVACS performance was preliminarily estimated at approximately 0.50.6 MWe. Numerical methods for the plant dynamic analysis of gas-and heavy-metal-cooled FRs were also developed. They were applied to the preliminary calculations of the transition from scram to natural circulation and the transient characteristics in tentative plant design concepts were clarified. ln addition, a dimensionless number indicating natural circulation performance was deduced for the comparison of several plant design concepts. With respect to the core/fuel-assembly thermal-hydraulics, numerical analysis methods were improved for the pin-type fuel assembly of gas-and heavy-metal-cooled FRs, the coated-particle- type fuel assembly of helium-gas-cooled FR, and the ductless core of sodium-and heavy-metal-cooled FRs. As preliminary evaluations, thermal-hydraulics in the heavy-metal-cooled FR fuel assembly was compared with sodium-cooled one and thermal-hydraulic analyses of carbon-dioxide- and helium-gas-cooled FR fuel assemblies were performed. The analysis for the fuel assembly with inside duct of sodium-cooled FR was also carried out. The correlations of pressure loss and heat transfer coefficient were investigated for the thermal-hydraulic ...