Research on effective temperature calculation method of annular fuel cell

Abstract

BackgroundThe annular fuel can increase the power density of the reactor due to its double-sided cooling, which is of great significance to the miniaturization and long-life operation of the pressurized water reactor.PurposeThis study aims at the calculation method of effective temperature of annular fuel cell by developing the thermal-hydraulic analysis code named THCAFS (Thermal-Hydraulic Code of Annular Fuel with Single channel) for annular fuel, and establishing a calculation model for the effective temperature of the annular fuel cell.MethodsBased on THCAFS, the thermal-hydraulic performance of the annular fuel cell designed by Westinghouse 4-loop PWR was analyzed, and the Code-to-Code comparison was carried out with the calculation results of VIPRE-01, TAFIX and NACAF. At the same time, the Monte Carlo code SERPENT was employed to simulate the radial power distribution and burnup process in the fuel rod, and the self-developed code THCAFS was used to simulate the thermodynamic behavior in the fuel rod, and the radial power distribution, nuclide density change and cell temperature field.Results & ConclusionsThe results show that THCAFS can be preliminarily applied to annular fuel design and thermal-hydraulic analysis. The maximum deviation of the ratio between the fitting function power and the simulated power under different fuel consumption does not exceed 2%. This effective temperature calculation method can also provide important reference value for the mechanism study of the relevant annular fuel resonance effective temperature.

Keywords

• annular fuel
• radial power distribution
• burnup process
• cell temperature field
• effective temperature