Research Status and Development Suggestion of Numerical Reactor

Abstract

With the rapid development of computer science and technology, numerical simulation has become one of scientific research methods after theory research and experiment research, and it is now playing a very important role in the R&D of nuclear reactors. At present, the decoupled and conservative analysis method is commonly used in the commercial nuclear reactor design. With higher requirements of the society for safer, more economic and more sustainable nuclear energy, the current analysis methods can no longer support for improving the safety and economy of nuclear reactors in service and the R&D of new reactors. It is necessary to establish a new highfidelity numerical method based on the best estimation and uncertainty analysis to minimize the assumptions and approximations. The tightcouple simulation could reduce unnecessary conservative margins and realize the mechanism analysis of various physical phenomena in the reactor core. It is hoped to replace most experiments with the numerical nuclear reactor. At present, it has become a hot-topic in the world, and most developed countries have released their own numerical reactor research plans. In the INERI (International Nuclear Energy Research Initiative) program initiated by the United States in 2002, the United States and South Korea launched a numerical reactor plan, which firstly proposed the concept of a highfidelity numerical reactor. In 2010, the US Department of Energy established the CASL program and the NEAMS program. In addition to the United States, Europe also conducted investigations since 2002. In 2005, the NURE series plans, the CORTEX plan and the HPMC/McSAFE plan have been carried out, and these plans now buildup highfidelity numerical simulation tools for Europe. Since the introduce of the AP1000 pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology in 2007, China has invested a lot in the R&D of thirdgeneration nuclear power technology with independent intellectual property rights， such as HPR1000 and CAP1400. Numerical reactor technology, as an important direction for the future development of nuclear energy technology, has received great attention in China. Many domestic institutes have carried out the R&D on the highfidelity numerical reactor technology. Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Institute Co., Ltd., and Xi’an Jiaotong University curried out the development of the CAP1400 numerical reactor system supported by a major project of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The CAP1400 reactor core has been simulated with the developed tools, and it provides technical support for the design, construction and operation of the CAP1400 demonstration project, and provides technical support for the preresearch of CAP1700 nuclear power plant. Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, China Institute of Atomic Energy, together with University of Science and Technology Beijing and the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have carried out a numerical reactor prototype system project. The goal is to develop a reactor simulation software for Eclass supercomputing, and realize demonstration applications of fourthgeneration fast reactors. At present, the development of the main modules of the largescale parallel numerical reactor prototype system CVR10 has been initially completed, and preliminary demonstration application is performed. While carrying out numerical reactor technology research, Harbin Engineering University and Nuclear Power Institute of China are working on the digital reactor programs, such as “Digital Reactor Engineering Key Technology Research”, “Longteng 2020” and “Digital Nuclear Power Plant R&D Platform”, and a lot of work has been done with the goal of building a 3D digital nuclear power plant. Based on the investigation and analysis of the numerical reactor technology development at home and abroad, some suggestions on the development of domestic numerical reactor technology are given.

Keywords

• numerical reactor
• multi-physical coupling
• research status
• development suggestion