Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Department of Physics, Air University, PAF Complex, E-9, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Post Ofce Nilore, Islamabad 45650, Pakistan
c
Department of Physics & Applied Mathematics, Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Post Ofce Nilore, Islamabad 45650, Pakistan
b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 13 January 2015
Received in revised form
25 July 2015
Accepted 27 July 2015
Available online xxx
The effect of fuel on transient behavior under simultaneous multiple reactivity insertion in a typical MTR
type research reactor have been studied. The PARET code was used for three different high density fueled
cores. The fuels included oxide (U3O8-Al), silicide (U3Si2-Al) and aluminide (UAlx-Al) respectively. In rst
part single ramp reactivity insertions were done and results were found in good agreement with already
published data. Then simultaneous multiple reactivity insertion transients were investigated with totally
disabled control systems. Multiple reactivities were inserted in the IAEA benchmarked MTR type
research reactor and effects on reactor power and temperatures (fuel, clad and coolant) were studied.
The simultaneous accidents included ramp reactivity (large and small) plus beam tube ooding, a ramp
reactivity plus a core movement and a ramp reactivity plus a sample ejection accident respectively. In all
cases, the reactivity rises to peak values and then starts decreasing slowly; however when the ramp is
large the peak values also become high and power also shows multiple peaks. The core having oxide fuel
has slightly higher power peak values while core with silicide and aluminide fuels show similar behavior.
The fuel temperatures in all cases were much higher for the core having oxide fuel as compared to other
two cores.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Research reactors
U3O8eAl
U3Si2eAl and UAlx-Al fuels
Multiple ramp reactivity accidents
1. Introduction
Research reactors are prone to severe accidents with possible
release of mega-Curies of hazardous ssion product activity to the
environment. Uncontrolled large reactivity insertion in a reactor
can produce such an accident. Efforts have been made in past to
determine the reactivity insertion limits for various research reactors both experimentally and theoretically. The PARET code was
initially developed as a part of the SPERT program to study reactor
transients theoretically (Obenchain, 1969). The code validation was
done by comparing its predictions with the actual experimentally
measured transient response in various SPERT cores. The computed
values of reactor power at the peak burst using the PARET code
showed a good agreement with the corresponding experimental
data (Cullen et al., 1986).
In the RA-2 critical facility in Argentina a super-prompt critical
excursion occurred in September 1983. This accident took place
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: nasirmm@yahoo.com, nmm@pieas.edu.pk (N.M. Mirza).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2015.07.018
0149-1970/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
512
2. Reactor description
Under RERTR program IAEA devised a benchmark MTR type and
its major parameters have been reported in its core conversion guide
books (IAEA, 1990). This system is a pool type reactor with high
density low enriched silicide (U3Si2eAl) fuel. All the other design
parameters are same as that of HEU fuelled research reactors.
513
Table 1
Design & thermal hydraulic parameters of IAEA benchmark MTR type reactor.
Active core height
Space at the grid plate per fuel element
Fuel element cross-section
Meat dimensions
Thickness of support plate
Number of fuel plates per fuel element
Number of fuel plates per control element
Identication of the remaining plate positions of the control element
60.0 cm
7.7 cm 8.1 cm
7.6 cm 8.05 cm including support plate
6.3 cm 0.051 cm 60.0 cm
0.475 cm
23 identical plates, each 0.127 cm thick
17 identical plates, each 0.127 cm thick
4 plates of aluminum, each 0.127 cm thick in the position of the rst, the third, the
twenty-rst, and the twenty-third standard plate position; water gaps between
the two sets of aluminum plates.
Enrichment 20 w/o U-235; 390 g U-235 (ru 4.40 g/cm3) per fuel element (23
plates)
46.7372
10 MWth
1000
275.97
0.0788
38
47.6
1.7
115.1
39.91
25.06
of calculations. Time step control was varied to achieve the optimum CPU time and small error.
The PARET code is generally not applicable to situations where
there is strong spaceetime coupling of neutron ux. The code also
uses steady-state heat transfer correlation and it is limited in its
prediction of thermal crisis by the fact that it employs the steadystate DNB correlation (Woodruff, 1982, 1984). Also it uses an
incompressible hydrodynamic model and a simplied void volume
generation equation. Therefore, hydrodynamic outputs of PARET
code should be interpreted as qualitative indicators. However,
comparison of PARET/ANL and RELAP/Mod3.3 codes for the several
reactivity transients have shown that the predictions of PARET code
are fairly close to the RELAP/Mod3.3 (Woodruff et al., 1996).
Pt
li Ci t
dt
L
i1
(1)
dCi t bi
Pt li Ci t;
dt
L
(2)
i 1; 2; 3; /; 6:
where, b and bi are the total and i'th group delayed neutron
Table 2
Thermal conductivity and heat capacities for the fuel and clad materials used in various systems.
Fuel meat/clad material
UAlx-Al
U3Si2-Al
U3O8-Al
Clad (Al-6061)
50.0
91.1
8.0
180
2.072
1.929
2.072
2.069
Cp a bT where, T is in K degree.
0.0011
0.0007
0.0011
0.0012
T
T
T
T
514
dPt rt b
Pt
dt
L
(3)
8
<0
rt gt
:
rm
for t 0
for 0 t Dt
for t Dt
(4)
Where, g is the ramp rate, Dt is the time duration for which the
ramp is applied and rm is the nal inserted reactivity. Similarly,
multiple simultaneous ramp reactivity insertions were modeled by
the following function:
8
<0
rt gt bt
:
rm
for t 0
for 0 t t1
for t t1
(5)
Where, g and b are two different the ramp rates between time t 0
and t1. The second ramp is applied without any delay time and rm is
the nal sum of inserted reactivity.
4. Fuel properties
Thermal conductivity and heat capacities for various fuels and
clads are shown as Table 2. Thermal conductivity for the oxide
(U3O8-Al) fuel is lowest among all and its heat capacity is close to
the value for aluminide (UAlx-Al) fuel. The silicide (U3Si2-Al) fuel
has the highest thermal conductivity and its heat capacity is comparable with other fuel types. Also aluminum clad shows high
thermal conductivity and good heat capacity.
The reactivity coefcients and other parameters for three
different fuels are given as Table 3 (IAEA, 1990; Muhammad and
Majid, 2010). There is a small difference between the L values of
different fuels and it is highest for silicide fuels, having the value of
44.0 ms followed by the aluminide fuel at 44.03 ms, and the oxide
fuel has the least L value of 44.01 ms. Similarly, The beff is maximum
at 0.007185 for UAlx-Al, followed by 0.007184 of U3O8-Al, and
Table 3
Reactivity coefcients & other parameters for the IAEA benchmark cores with different fuel types.
Parameter
UAlx-Al
U3Si2-Al
U3O8-Al
Density (g/cm3)
Coolant temperature ( 106 Dk/k K)
Coolant Density ( 106 Dk/k K)
Fuel temperature ( 106 Dk/k K)
beff (x 1000)
L (msecond)
4.40
95.96
283.87
26.72
7.185
42.03
4.40
96.435
283.449
26.774
7.181
44.04
4.40
96.40
283.716
27.386
7.184
44.01
515
Fig. 2. Comparison of (a) power (MW) and (b) fuel temperature (oC) as a function of
time for single and multiple (small ramp ($0.4/0.5 s) along with beam tube ooding)
transients in U3O8eAl fueled LEU core (initial power 10 MW; scram was disabled).
516
Fig. 3. Comparison of power (solid lines) and fuel temperature (lines plus symbols) as
a function of time (during large ramp ($1.3/0.5 s) with simultaneous beam tube
ooding) for different fuel/clad cores at initial power of 10 MW (scram was not
enabled).
Within 0.5 s, two peaks are observed for both the power and fuel
temperature proles. The reactivity rises to peak values and then
starts decreasing slowly; however when the ramp is large the peak
values also become high. The power also shows two peaks where
the second peak remains higher as compared to the rst peak in all
cases. The power rises to a peak value in less than a second and then
keeps on rising monotonically in the absence of reactor scram for
all cases. The U3O8eAl fueled core shows slightly higher power
peaks as compared to other two cores The U3Si2eAl fueled core
remained lowest in power rise during the transient. The fuel temperatures (Fig. 3) remained far below the melting temperatures.
The fuel temperatures in the core with oxide (U3O8eAl) fuel
remained at higher power peaks as compared to other two cores
due to its low thermal conductivity values. The U3Si2eAl fueled
core is lowest in fuel temperature rise during the multiple reactivity
transient. Fuel temperatures remain below 165 C because of good
thermal conductivity of both silicide (U2Si3eAl) and aluminide
(UAlx-Al) fuels. In these multiple reactivity transients, the coolant
reached at onset of nucleate boiling and attained the saturation
temperature.
Fig. 4. Comparison of power (solid lines) and fuel temperature (lines plus symbols) as
a function of time (large ramp ($1.0/0.5 s) with simultaneous core movement towards
thermal column transient) in different fuel/clad systems at initial power of 1 W (scram
was not enabled).
Fig. 5. Comparison of power (solid lines) and fuel temperature (lines plus symbols) as
a function of time (during a small ramp along with sample ejection accident) in
different fuel/clad systems at initial power of 10 MW (scram was not enabled).
517