Development of a DO/HO vapor generator for contrast-variation neutron scattering

Arima-Osonoi, Hiroshi*; Takata, Shinichi; Kasai, Satoshi*; Ouchi, Keiichi*; Morikawa, Toshiaki*; Miyata, Noboru*; Miyazaki, Tsukasa*; Aoki, Hiroyuki; Iwase, Hiroki*; Hiroi, Kosuke; et al.

Journal of Applied Crystallography, 56(6), p.1802 - 1812, 2023/12

https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576723009780

Simulation-based dynamic probabilistic risk assessment of an internal flooding-initiated accident in nuclear power plant using THALES2 and RAPID

Kubo, Kotaro; Zheng, X.; Tanaka, Yoichi; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Sugiyama, Tomoyuki; Jang, S.*; Takata, Takashi*; Yamaguchi, Akira*

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O; Journal of Risk and Reliability, 237(5), p.947 - 957, 2023/10

https://doi.org/10.1177/1748006X221091604

Probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is a method used to assess the risks associated with large and complex systems. However, the timing at which nuclear power plant structures, systems, and components are damaged is difficult to estimate if the risk of an external event is evaluated using conventional PRA based on event trees and fault trees. A methodology coupling thermal-hydraulic analysis with external event simulations using Risk Assessment with Plant Interactive Dynamics (RAPID) is therefore proposed to overcome this limitation. A flood propagation model based on Bernoulli's theorem was applied to represent internal flooding in the turbine building of the pressurized water reactor. Uncertainties were also taken into account, including the flow rate of the floodwater source and the failure criteria for the mitigation systems. The simulated recovery actions included the operator isolating the floodwater source and using a drainage pump; these actions were modeled using several simplifications. Overall, the results indicate that combining isolation and drainage can reduce the conditional core damage probability upon the occurrence of flooding by approximately 90%.

The Development of a Multiphysics Coupled Solver for Studying the Effect of Dynamic Heterogeneous Configuration on Particulate Debris Bed Criticality and Cooling Characteristics

Li, C.-Y.; Wang, K.*; Uchibori, Akihiro; Okano, Yasushi; Pellegrini, M.*; Erkan, N.*; Takata, Takashi*; Okamoto, Koji*

Applied Sciences (Internet), 13(13), p.7705_1 - 7705_29, 2023/07

https://doi.org/10.3390/app13137705

Dynamic probabilistic risk assessment of seismic-induced flooding in pressurized water reactor by seismic, flooding, and thermal-hydraulics simulations

Kubo, Kotaro; Jang, S.*; Takata, Takashi*; Yamaguchi, Akira*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 60(4), p.359 - 373, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2022.2100837

Probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is an essential approach to improving the safety of nuclear power plants. However, this method includes certain difficulties, such as modeling of combinations of multiple hazards. Seismic-induced flooding scenario includes several core damage sequences, i.e., core damage caused by earthquake, flooding, and combination of earthquake and flooding. The flooding fragility is time-dependent as the flooding water propagates from the water source such as a tank to compartments. Therefore, dynamic PRA should be used to perform a realistic risk analysis and quantification. This study analyzed the risk of seismic-induced flooding events by coupling seismic, flooding, and thermal-hydraulics simulations, considering the dependency between multiple hazards explicitly. For requirements of safety improvement, especially in light of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, sensitivity analysis was performed on the seismic capacity of systems, and the effectiveness of alternative steam generator injection by a portable pump was estimated. We demonstrate the use of this simulation-based dynamic PRA methodology to evaluate the risk induced by a combination of hazards.

In-vessel source term analysis code TRACER Version 2.4.1 (User's manual)

Ono, Masahiro*; Uchibori, Akihiro; Okano, Yasushi; Takata, Takashi*

JAEA-Testing 2022-004, 193 Pages, 2023/03

JAEA-Testing-2022-004.pdf:3.31MB

A computer code TRACER (Transport phenomena of Radionuclides for Accident Consequence Evaluation of Reactor) version 2.4.1 has been developed to evaluate species and quantities of fission products (FPs) released into cover gas due to a fuel pin failure in an LMFBR. The TRACER version 2.4.1 includes the models related to NUREG-0772 and also new or modified computational program codes in order to possess a new function shown below, and partial modify of coefficient of FP transition model between coolant and cover gas. This manual includes manual conventions for TRACER Version 2.3, addition of reference such as formula, improvement of explanation of input file creation method, addition of improvement of NUREG-0772 model added to TRACER code, modification of figure of sample analysis performed in appendix. It includes modifications and additions of sample analysis.

Development of ARKADIA-Safety for severe accident evaluation of sodium-cooled fast reactors

Aoyagi, Mitsuhiro; Sonehara, Masateru; Ishida, Shinya; Uchibori, Akihiro; Kawada, Kenichi; Okano, Yasushi; Takata, Takashi

Proceedings of Technical Meeting on State-of-the-art Thermal Hydraulics of Fast Reactors (Internet), 3 Pages, 2022/09

Development of plant lifecycle optimization method, ARKADIA for advanced reactors

Uchibori, Akihiro; Sogabe, Joji; Okano, Yasushi; Takata, Takashi*; Doda, Norihiro; Tanaka, Masaaki; Enuma, Yasuhiro; Wakai, Takashi; Asayama, Tai; Ohshima, Hiroyuki

Proceedings of Technical Meeting on State-of-the-art Thermal Hydraulics of Fast Reactors (Internet), 10 Pages, 2022/09

The ARKAIDA has been developed to realize automatic optimization of plant design from safety evaluation for the advanced reactors represented by a sodium-cooled fast reactor. ARKADIA-Design offers functions to support design optimization both in normal operating conditions and design basis events. The multi-level simulation approach by the coupled analysis such as neutronics, core deformation, core thermal hydraulics was developed as one of the main technologies of the ARKADIA-Design. On the other hand, ARKAIDA-Safety aims for safety evaluation considering severe accidents. As a key technology, the numerical methods for in- and ex-vessel coupled phenomena during severe accidents in sodium-cooled fast reactors were tested through a hypothetical severe accident event.

Development of integrated severe accident analysis code, SPECTRA for sodium-cooled fast reactor

Uchibori, Akihiro; Sonehara, Masateru; Aoyagi, Mitsuhiro; Takata, Takashi*; Ohshima, Hiroyuki

Proceedings of International Conference on Fast Reactors and Related Fuel Cycles; Sustainable Clean Energy for the Future (FR22) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2022/04

A new computational code, SPECTRA, has been developed for integrated analysis of in- and ex-vessel phenomena during severe accidents in sodium-cooled fast reactors. The in-vessel thermal hydraulics module includes coupled analytical models for multidimensional multifluid model considering compressibility and relocation of a molten core. A lumped mass model is employed for computing behavior of ex-vessel compressible multicomponent gas including aerosols. This model is coupled with the models for ex-vessel phenomena such as sodium fire. Loss of reactor level event starting from leakage of sodium coolant was computed. Basic capability to evaluate severe accident progress was demonstrated through this analysis.

Quasi-Monte Carlo sampling method for simulation-based dynamic probabilistic risk assessment of nuclear power plants

Kubo, Kotaro; Jang, S.*; Takata, Takashi*; Yamaguchi, Akira*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 59(3), p.357 - 367, 2022/03

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2021.1971119

Dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA), which handles epistemic and aleatory uncertainties by coupling the thermal-hydraulics simulation and probabilistic sampling, enables a more realistic and detailed analysis than conventional PRA. However, enormous calculation costs are incurred by these improvements. One solution is to select an appropriate sampling method. In this paper, we applied the Monte Carlo, Latin hypercube, grid-point, and quasi-Monte Carlo sampling methods to the dynamic PRA of a station blackout sequence in a boiling water reactor and compared each method. The result indicated that quasi-Monte Carlo sampling method handles the uncertainties most effectively in the assumed scenario.

Development of reacting jet evaluation model based on engineering approaches with particle method for improvement of LEAP-III code

Kosaka, Wataru; Uchibori, Akihiro; Takata, Takashi; Yanagisawa, Hideki*; Watanabe, Akira*; Jang, S.*

Proceedings of 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19) (Internet), 11 Pages, 2022/03

For the safety assessment of a steam generator (SG) in a sodium-cooled fast reactor, the analysis code LEAP-III can evaluate the water leak rate during the long-term event progress including the tube failure propagation triggered by an occurrence of a small water leak in a failed heat transfer tube in SG. The LEAP-III has the advantage in completing the calculation with low computational cost since it consists of semi-empirical formulae and one-dimensional equations of conservation. However, an evaluation model of temperature distribution by the reacting jet provides wider high temperature region than the experimental data. As a result, LEAP-III shows excessive conservativeness in some case. A Lagrangian particle method code based on engineering approaches has been developed in order to improve this model to get more realistic temperature distribution. In this method, the jet behavior and chemical reaction are simulated using Newton's equation of motion with several engineering approximations instead of solving multi-dimension multiphase thermal hydraulic equations with sodium-water reaction. In this study, interparticle interaction force model was added, and also the chemical reaction and gas-liquid heat transfer evaluation models were improved. We conducted a test analysis, and compared the results by this particle method with the ones by SERAPHIM, that is a mechanistic analysis code for multi-dimensional multiphase flow considering compressibility and sodium-water reaction. Through this test analysis, it confirmed that this particle method has the basic capability to get a realistic temperature distribution with low computational cost, and also to predict tube failure occurrence by coupled with LEAP-III.