Session: 02-14: Structural Evaluation, Performance Assessment, Multiphysics Coupling - IV

Paper Number: 139586

139586 - Theoretical and Experimental Validation of Core Management System Code Package of the Annular Fuel 

Abstract: 

Annular fuel is an economy and security promising kind of new fuel element. The double cladding of an annular fuel rod can significantly improve its heat transfer capacity. This characteristic is helpful for designing reactors with smaller core volume, higher core safety and better economy. It is believed that the apply of annular fuel in pressurized water reactor can fully show its advantages, and the annular fuel is one of the important development trends of advanced fuel assembly of pressurized water reactor. The structure of annular fuel is obviously different from that of solid fuel. Due to the water presence inside of the annular fuel, the self-shielding effect is reduced and U-238 resonance captures are effective on both sides of the annular fuel pellet. Therefore, the annular fuel resonance calculation model is very different from that of solid fuel. As a result, the traditional commercial pressurized water reactor core fuel management program is not suitable for annular fuel core design. The core management system code package CMS (CASMO5, CMSLINK5, and SIMULATE5) [2011] developed by Studsvik is largely mature for light water reactor core design. However, the annular fuel design changes the basic rod configuration, which might lead to inaccurate results when using CMS. Therefore, modifying the calculation model of the CMS allows it to accurately calculate the annular fuel. However, the accuracy of the modified in calculating annular fuel needs to be fully verified. In this paper, the three annular fuel designs considered are labeled as PIN-01(13×13 lattice), PIN-02(11×11 lattice) and PIN-02(9×9 lattice).CASMO5 was benchmarked against the Monte Carlo code package MONK10 for pin cell and assembly for three annular fuel designs. The results show that there is a satisfactory agreement between CASMO5 and MONK10 for three annular fuel designs. Then, the annular fuel zero-power reactor is constructed, and zero-power physics such as annular fuel critical parameters, control rod reactivity effect, poison-free pin cell reactivity effect, gadolinium-poisoned pin cell reactivity effect and temperature effect are carried out experiment to verify the CMS. The experimental verification results show that the deviation between the CMS and experimental of the critical parameter is less than 200pcm, the relative deviation of the control rod worth is less than 15%, and the poison-free pin cell worth, gadolinium-poisoned pin cell worth and temperature reactivity coefficient are good agreed with experimental results. The results of theoretical and experimental verification prove that the CMS is suitable for annular core design, and calculation accuracy meets the design requirements.

Presenting Author: Qingfu Zhu China Institute of Atomic Energy

Presenting Author Biography: Qingfu ZHU graduated from China Institute of Atomic Energy, mainly focused on nuclear criticalitysafety and zero power experiment research in CIAE.

Authors:

Cuijie Pan China Institute of Atomic Energy
Qingfu Zhu China Institute of Atomic Energy
Qi Zhou China Institute of Atomic Energy
Zhaodong Xia China Institute of Atomic Energy
Geng Zhang China Institute of Atomic Energy
Yuting Cheng China Institute of Atomic Energy