Research On Neutronic And Thermal-Hydraulic Programs In Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor

Under the pressure of soaring energy prices, global warming, nuclear power got more and more attention in recent years. However, only depending on the current technology of nuclear power units to generate electricity, which has much lower efficiency, limited uranium resources have become problems need to be solved. Considering the sustainability, power plant safety, thermal efficiency, nuclear non-proliferation and other factors, many organizations have done lots basic researches on fourth-generation reactors. The study of supercritical water reactor (one kind of the fourth-generation nuclear power) has been listed in National Basic Research Program of China (973 scientific item).In the thermal energy conversion and transmission process of supercritical water-cooled reactor, the physical properties of supercritical water would inevitably appear severe changes, which lead to great local density, power inhomogeneity, reactivity and power perturbation, then cause stronger feedback between thermal-hydraulic and neutron-physical characteristics than in the conventional PWR. Thus establishing computation analysis platform which can be used to analyze thermal-hydraulic and neutron-physical characteristics in supercritical water-cooled reactor physics is very necessary.This study chose appropriate thermal spectrum supercritical water-cooled reactor as basic research object to establish calculation platform. Firstly, set up suitable thermal hydraulic model, including heat transfer model and flow pressure drop model, and then establish flexible thermal-hydraulic computation analysis platform; Secondly, use the neutron physics software which can be analyzed fuel assembly, and with one-dimensional axial neutron diffusion equation, establish the fuel assembly analysis platform; Finally, connect fuel assembly analysis platform with reactor core neutron physics analysis software, and then establish the whole reactor neutron physics analysis platform. Using established the computation platforms, analyze basic research objects, by calculating and the results are in good agreement with the design parameters. In addition, analyze the mass flux distribution of coolant in the American supercritical water-cooled reactor design (SCWR), and the mass flux distribution of moderator in the European supercritical water-cooled reactor design (HPLWR), then got better outcomes. Therefore, this study provides the flexible computation platforms.