Stability analysis of supercritical water cooled reactors

The Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR) is a concept for an advanced reactor that will operate at high pressure (25MPa) and high temperature (500°C average core exit). The high coolant temperature as it leaves the reactor core gives the SCWR the potential for high thermal efficiency (45%). However, near the supercritical thermodynamic point, coolant density is very sensitive to temperature which raises concerns about instabilities in the supercritical water-cooled nuclear reactors. To ensure a proper design of SCWR without instability problems, the U.S. reference SCWR design was investigated. The objectives of this work are: (1) to develop a methodology for stability assessment of both thermal-hydraulic and nuclear-coupled stabilities under supercritical pressure conditions, (2) to compare the stability of the proposed SCWR to that of the BWR, and (3) to develop guidance for SCWR designers to avoid instabilities with large margins. Two kinds of instabilities, namely Ledinegg-type flow excursion and Density Wave Oscillations (DWO), have been studied. The DWO analysis was conducted for three oscillation modes: Single channel thermal-hydraulic stability, Coupled-nuclear Out-of-Phase stability and Coupled-nuclear In-Phase stability.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Zhao, Jiyun, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mujid S. Kazimi.

• Nuclear Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34651

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34651