Coupling a System Code with Computational Fluid Dynamics for the Simulation of Complex Coolant Reactivity Effects

Davide Bertolotto
EPFL, 2011
EPFL thesis

Abstract

The current doctoral research is focused on the development and validation of a coupled computational tool, to combine the advantages of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in analyzing complex flow fields and of state-of-the-art system codes employed for nuclear power plant (NPP) simulations. Such a tool can considerably enhance the analysis of NPP transient behavior, e.g. in the case of pressurized water reactor (PWR) accident scenarios such as Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) and boron dilution, in which strong coolant flow asymmetries and multi-dimensional mixing effects strongly influence the reactivity of the reactor core, as described in Chap. 1. To start with, a literature review on code coupling is presented in Chap. 2, together with the corresponding ongoing projects in the international community. Special reference is made to the framework in which this research has been carried out, i.e. the Paul Scherrer Institute's (PSI) project STARS (Steady-state and Transient Analysis Research for the Swiss reactors). In particular, the codes chosen for the coupling, i.e. the CFD code ANSYS CFX V11.0 and the system code US-NRC TRACE V5.0, are part of the STARS codes system. Their main features are also described in Chap. 2. The development of the coupled tool, named CFX/TRACE from the names of the two constitutive codes, has proven to be a complex and broad-based task, and therefore constraints had to be put on the target requirements, while keeping in mind a certain modularity to allow future extensions to be made with minimal efforts. After careful consideration, the coupling was defined to be on-line, parallel and with non-overlapping domains connected by an interface, which was developed through the Parallel Virtual Machines (PVM) software, as described in Chap. 3. Moreover, two numerical coupling schemes were implemented and tested: a sequential explicit scheme and a sequential semi-implicit scheme. Finally, it was decided that the coupling would be single-phase and isothermal, leaving to future work the extension to more complex cases. The development work itself is presented in Chap. 3, together with a generic consideration of code-coupling issues and the discussion of a few verification cases. After the basic development and verification of the coupled tool, an experiment was devised for its initial validation. The employed experimental set-up, presented in Chap. 4, features a double T-junction, connected to a recirculation loop and instrumented with wire-mesh sensors to measure the concentration of a tracer injected into the flow. The main aim of this experiment has been to challenge the coupled tool with the transport of a tracer in a steady-state flow field. The experimental results, the CFX and TRACE stand-alone simulations, and the CFX/TRACE coupled simulations are compared with each other for validation purposes, as well as for a clear demonstration of the improvements that one can achieve by using a coupled tool. The simulations, at the same time, indicated the occurrence of strong "numerical diffusion" effects in the TRACE simulations, these being found to result from weaknesses in the numerical discretization adopted in the code for the solute tracking equation. Accordingly, as described in Chap. 5, a third-order upwind scheme for the numerical discretization, namely QUICKEST-ULTIMATE, has been implemented in TRACE to replace the original first-order upwind scheme. The mathematical derivation of the new scheme is presented, together with certain verification and validation tests. In particular, the improvements over the original TRACE scheme are shown in the context of the coupled CFX/TRACE simulations of the double T-junction experiment. Finally, a second phase of experimental validation was devised for the coupling. To this end, certain qualification tests for the new FLORIS facility at PSI have been used, as presented in Chap. 6. This second facility features a scaled-down, simplified, two-dimensional vertical slice of a BWR vessel. The aim of this second mixing experiment has been, on the one hand, to challenge the momentum equation coupling in the context of the transport of a tracer in a transient flow field, and, on the other hand, to test the performance of the coupled tool for the case of a more complex geometry. Once again, comparisons have been made between experimental results, CFX and TRACE stand-alone simulations, and CFX/TRACE coupled simulations, employing the QUICKEST-ULTIMATE discretization where possible. As before, it is clearly demonstrated that the coupled tool yields much better results than the stand-alone codes. Furthermore, it has been found to be sufficiently robust for being extended to more advanced applications, such as the analysis of PWR transients in which strong reactivity feedback effects occur in the context of complex coolant flow phenomena.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/169604?ln=en

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts

Related publications

Davide Bertolotto
EPFL, 2011
EPFL thesis

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/169604?ln=en

About this result

Related concepts (11)

A nuclear reactor core is the portion of a nuclear reactor containing the nuclear fuel components where the nuclear reactions take place and the heat is generated. Typically, the fuel will be low-en

A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turb

Analysis (: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathema

Related concepts

Related publications (3)

Related publications

Development of the control assembly pattern and dynamic analysis of the generation IV large gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR)

Gaëtan Girardin

During the past ten years, different independent factors, such as the rapidly increasing worldwide demand in energy, societal concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, and the high and volatile prices for fossil fuels, have contributed to the renewed interest in nuclear technology. It is in this context that the Generation IV international forum (GIF) launched the initiative, in 2000, to collaborate on the research and development (R&D) efforts needed for the next generation, i.e. Generation IV, of nuclear reactors. These advanced systems will be ideally deployed beyond the year 2030, following the Generation III or III+ nuclear power plants, which are mainly based on light water technology and are currently entering deployment. A particular goal set for Generation IV systems is closure of the nuclear fuel cycle. Thus, apart from improvements in safety, they are expected to offer a better utilization of natural resources, as also a minimization of long-lived radioactive wastes. Among the systems selected by the GIF, the Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) is a highly innovative system with advanced fuel geometry and materials (fuel pellets of mixed uranium-plutonium carbide within a plate-type, honeycomb structure made of SiC). It is in the context of the large, 2400 MWth reference GFR design that the present doctoral research has been conducted, the principal aim having been to develop and qualify the control assembly (CA) pattern and corresponding CA implementation scheme for this system. The work has been carried out in three successive and complementary phases: (1) validation of the neutronics tools, (2) the CA pattern development and related static analysis, and (3) dynamic core behavior studies for hypothetical CA driven transients. The deterministic code system ERANOS and its associated nuclear data libraries for fast reactors were developed and validated for the previous generation of sodium-cooled reactors. The validation of ERANOS for GFR applications was, therefore, the first task to be realized in the present research. This has entailed a systematic reanalysis of the GFR-relevant, integral data generated at PSI during the GCFR-PROTEUS experimental program of the 1970's. Thus, during the first phase of the thesis, the reference PROTEUS test lattice from these experiments has been analyzed with ERANOS-2.0 and its associated, adjusted nuclear data library ERALIB1, in order to derive a reference computational scheme to be used later for the GFR analysis. Additionally, benchmark calculations were performed with the Monte Carlo code MCNPX, allowing one to both check the deterministic results and to analyze the sensitivity to different modern data libraries. It has been found that, for the main reaction rate ratios, the new analysis of the GCFR-PROTEUS reference lattice generally yields good agreement – within 1σ measurement uncertainty – with experimental values and with the Monte Carlo simulations. As shown by the analysis, the predictions were in somewhat better agreement in the case of the adjusted ERALIB1 library. The applicability of ERANOS-2.0/ERALIB1 as the reference neutronics tool for the GFR analysis could thus be demonstrated. Furthermore, neutronics aspects related to the novel features of the GFR, for which new experimental investigations are needed, were highlighted. In the second phase of the research, the CA pattern was developed for the GFR, based on iterative neutronics and thermal-hydraulics calculations, 2D and 3D neutronics models for the reactor core having first been set up using the reference ERANOS-2.0/ERALIB1 computational scheme. For the thermal-hydraulics analysis, the CEA code COPERNIC was used. This design work was followed by the study of an appropriate CA implementation scheme (number of CAs and corresponding positions within the core). Detailed neutronics studies revealed the existence of large CA interaction effects, so-called shadowing/anti-shadowing effects leading to an amplification/reduction of the CA worth. The interactions between the absorber pins within a CA, and between the CAs themselves, were investigated in detail, with the goal to optimize the CA efficiency, in terms of the absorber fraction and minimization of the associated heterogeneity effects. The proposed CA pattern consists of 54 absorber pins placed in a triangular lattice. Each absorber pin is a stainless-steel tube filled with highly enriched 10B boron carbide pellets. As a result of the detailed investigations, the absorber pin diameter could be chosen such as to minimize the pin-to-pin influence within the assembly. In particular, a central part of the CA was designed without any absorber pins (zone filled with stagnant helium). A final reduction of the heterogeneity effect (difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous treatments) to 13% was achieved through this feature. Of special importance, the neutronics investigations performed for the reference GFR core ("2004-Core"), especially those related to the CA interactions, have directly contributed to a new core design ("2007-Core"), with the height-to-diameter ratio having been increased to 0.6, compared to 0.3 for the reference core. During the third phase, detailed coupled, 3D neutron-kinetics (NK) and 1D thermal-hydraulics (TH) models were developed for the GFR core, the aim being to arrive at an in-depth understanding of the 3D core behavior during CA driven transients, especially from the viewpoint of spatial effects. The coupled models were developed using the PARCS code for the 3D NK and the TRACE code for the 1D TH modeling. Particular attention was paid to have each individual fuel sub-assembly and CA represented, in order to allow the analysis of local deformations of the 3D distributions of power and safety related parameters, such as the coolant, cladding and fuel temperatures. The validation of the coupled full-core models was performed against reference ERANOS-VARIANT calculations. In particular, the CA worth and reactivity feedbacks were benchmarked, the discrepancies being shown to be relatively low (

EPFL2009

Gas cooling in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has a long history, the corresponding reactor types developed in France, the UK and the US having been thermal neutron-spectrum systems using graphite as the moderator. The majority of NPPs worldwide, however, are currently light water reactors, using ordinary water as both coolant and moderator. These NPPs – of the so-called second generation – will soon need replacement, and a third generation is now being made available, offering increased safety while still based on light water technology. For the longer-term future, viz. beyond the year 2030, R&D is currently ongoing on Generation IV NPPs, aimed at achieving closure of the nuclear fuel cycle, and hence both drastically improved utilization of fuel resources and minimization of long-lived radioactive wastes. Since the very beginning of the international cooperation on Generation IV, viz. the year 2000, the main research interest in Europe as regards the advanced fast-spectrum systems needed for achieving complete fuel cycle closure, has been for the Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR). However, the Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) is currently considered as the main back-up solution. Like the SFR, the GFR is an efficient breeder, also able to work as iso-breeder using simply natural uranium as feed and producing waste which is predominantly in the form of fission products. The main drawback of the GFR is the difficulty to evacuate decay heat following a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) due to the low thermal inertia of the core, as well as to the low coolant density. The present doctoral research focuses on the improvement of decay heat removal (DHR) for the Generation-IV GFR. The reference GFR system design considered in the thesis is the 2006 CEA concept, with a power of 2400 MWth. The CEA 2006 DHR strategy foresees, in all accidental cases (independent of the system pressure), that the reactor is shut down. For high-pressure events, dedicated DHR loops with blowers and heat exchangers are designed to operate when the power conversion system cannot be used to provide acceptable core temperatures under natural convection conditions. For depressurized events, the strategy relies on a dedicated small containment (called the guard containment) providing an intermediate back-up pressure. The DHR blowers, designed to work under these pressure conditions, need to be powered either by the power grid or by batteries for at least 24 hours. The specific contributions of the present research – aimed at achieving enhanced passivity of the DHR system for the GFR – are design and analysis related to (1) the injection of heavy gas into the primary circuit after a LOCA, to enable natural convection cooling at an intermediate-pressure level, and (2) an autonomous Brayton loop to evacuate decay heat at low primary pressure in case of a loss of the guard-containment pressure. Both these developments reduce the dependence on blower power availability considerably. First, the thermal-hydraulic codes used in the study – TRACE and CATHARE – are validated for gas cooling. The validation includes benchmark comparisons between the codes, serving to identify the sensitivity of the results to the different modeling assumptions. The parameters found to be the most sensitive in this analysis, such as heat transfer and friction models, are then validated via a detailed re-analysis of earlier PSI (EIR, at the time) gas-loop experiments conducted in the 1970s. Conclusions and recommendations on the models to be used for transient analysis are derived. In general, it has been shown that the agreement, between experiments and the correlations for heat transfer and friction used in TRACE and CATHARE, is quite satisfactory. The thus validated codes are then used in the two detailed, DHR improvement studies carried out. The first improvement of the reference DHR strategy is the heavy gas injection. Assuming a DHR blower failure after a LOCA, the helium pressure in the guard containment is not high enough to evacuate the decay heat by natural convection. To improve the natural convection, the effects of injecting different heavy gases (N2, CO2, Ar and a N2/He mixture) into the primary circuit were analyzed, in order to address the possibility of dealing with DHR-blower failure while accepting an intermediate back-up pressure in the guard containment. Furthermore, different injection locations and injection mass flows were considered, and the sensitivity to the number of available DHR loops and LOCA break-sizes was also addressed. It has been found that injecting the heavy gas in the vicinity of the core could lead to overcooling problems. For an injection point sufficiently far from the core, however, both CO2 and N2 are found to be able to cool the core satisfactorily in natural convection. N2 is proposed as the reference, due to possible chemical problems with CO2. The second proposition for DHR improvement is related to the possibility of a simultaneous guard-containment failure, i.e. a loss-of-back-up-pressure (LOBP) combined with a blower failure after a LOCA. In this case the natural convection, even with heavy gas injection, is no longer strong enough to evacuate the decay heat. To address this issue, the possibility of decay heat removal via use of a dedicated autonomous Brayton cycle – as a standalone DHR loop – has been investigated. First, an analytical Brayton cycle model has been set up, so as to identify convenient machine design points and to study the machine's off-design behavior. Two machine designs have then been drawn up: one for helium in order to provide a reference for understanding the Brayton loop behavior in a generic sense, and the other for nitrogen which is the envisaged gas to be injected after a LOCA. Both, the design of the proposed devices and their validation are discussed. Finally, a detailed transient analysis, involving usage of both heavy-gas injection and the Brayton device (i.e. of the complete, proposed DHR system), is presented. This serves to illustrate the effectiveness of the new strategy for the highly hypothetical worst-case scenario of sequential failures following a LOCA.

EPFL2010

A Hybrid Approach to Neutron Transport with Thermal-hydraulic Feedback for Reactor Transient Analysis

Alexander Aures

Understanding the time-dependent behaviour of a nuclear reactor following an intended or unintended change of the reactor conditions is of crucial importance to the safe operation of nuclear reactors. Safety evaluations of nuclear reactors involve the analysis of normal and abnormal reactor operation states with adequate and validated simulation tools. There is a growing interest in supplementing the results of best-estimate reactor calculations with uncertainties. A major source of uncertainty in reactor calculations is the nuclear data. The propagation of uncertainties allows to study their impact on response values of reactor calculations and to establish safety margins in nuclear reactor safety evaluations. For the simulation of reactor transients, the two-step approach consisting of the generation of group constants in infinite lattice geometry and the full-core calculation using a neutron-kinetic/thermal-hydraulic code system has been state-of-the-art. Nowadays, Monte Carlo codes allow for the determination of group constants based on a three-dimensional full-core model. Thus, effects from neighbouring fuel assemblies can be considered. In this thesis, the applicability of the neutron-kinetic code DYN3D coupled with the thermal-hydraulic system code ATHLET for the simulation of transients in small reactor cores was assessed. Experimental reactivity accident tests carried out at the SPERT III research reactor were simulated. Appropriate group constants were generated with the Monte Carlo code Serpent. The overall good agreement between the calculated and the experimental results prove the applicability of the applied codes for the analysis of such reactor transients. Nuclear data uncertainties were propagated through the simulations of two control rod withdrawal transients in a mini-core model of a pressurised water reactor. The random sampling-based method XSUSA in combination with the SCALE code package was used to determine varied two-group constants. Based on these two-group constants, 1,000 DYN3D-ATHLET calculations were performed and statistically analysed to obtain uncertainty information for the reactor power and the reactivity. Since the assumption of normality could not be maintained for the reactor power, distribution-free Wilks tolerance limits were applied. By sensitivity analyses, the number of delayed neutrons per fission of U-235 and the scattering cross sections of U-238 were identified as the major contributors to the reactor power uncertainty. For a potential improvement of transient simulations, an approach was developed that was comprised of the determination of group constants using a Serpent full-core model at selected times during a transient simulation and the updating of the original infinite lattice group constants with these full-core group constants. Various challenges and possible solutions were identified. The applicability of the group constants obtained by a full-core model was assessed by their application in full-core diffusion calculations.

EPFL2021