Experimental and Analytical Modeling of Natural Circulation and Forced Circulation BWRs

Download or read book Experimental and Analytical Modeling of Natural Circulation and Forced Circulation BWRs written by Masahiro Furuya and published by IOS Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 20% of the Nuclear Power Plants are known as Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs). These BWRs have pumps that cool their reactor. In the design of new BWRs, ways to cool the core by a natural circulation flow, without pumps, also called natural circulation BWRs, are being considered. In these new systems, a chimney is installed on top of the core to increase natural circulation flow. A possible disadvantage of natural circulation BWRs might be their susceptibility to instabilities, which could then lead to both flow and power oscillations. The stability features of both natural circulation and forced circulation BWRs have been investigated thoroughly, using dedicated experimental setups, analytical models and numerical codes. We distinguish between pure thermal-hydraulic stability - where the fission power is assumed to be constant - and coupled thermalhydraulic-neutronic stability - where the two-phase mixture in the core influences the fission chain reaction...