Preliminary Evaluation of Safety Margins of HEU and LEU BR2 Cores

Silva Kalcheva, Edgar Koonen, B. Dionne, E.E. Feldman, M. Kalimullah, A.P. Olson, C.P. Tzanos, Geert Van den Branden

Research outputpeer-review

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Abstract

The objective of this work was to: (a) perform a steady state thermal hydraulic analysis of the BR2 reactor with the ANL code PLTEMP and compare its predictions with those of the code of S. Fabrega used in the BR2 safety analysis report, and (b) perform with PLTEMP the same analysis for a BR2 core with LEU fuel and compare its performance with that of the current HEU core. Analyses were performed at nominal operating conditions without and with hot channel factors. Safety margins to onset-of-nucleate-boiling, fully developed nucleate boiling and to flow instability were used as measures of performance. In the LEU (UMo) core, the geometrical parameters of the standard BR2 fuel element (assembly) were preserved. For the analyses with PLTEMP, power distributions were computed with the MCNPX code. The predictions of PLTEMP are in good agreement with those of the Fabrega code, and the limiting power and velocity in the LEU core are about 8% lower than those in the HEU core.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherSCK CEN
Number of pages29
Edition0
StatePublished - Oct 2010

Publication series

NameSCK•CEN Reports
PublisherStudiecentrum voor Kernenergie
No.BLG-1079

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