Evaluation of hot channel factor for sodium-cooled fast reactors with multi-physics toolkit

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and design 2020-08, Vol.365 (C), p.110704, Article 110704
• Main Authors: Yu, Yiqi, Shemon, Emily R., Kim, Taek K., Merzari, Elia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Cladding; Competitiveness; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Evaluation; Fast nuclear reactors; Fluid flow; Hot channel factor; Hydraulics; Modelling; Multi-physics; Nuclear energy; Nuclear engineering; Nuclear fuels; Nuclear reactors; Nuclear safety; Parameter uncertainty; Physics; Prototyping; Reactors; Reduction; Safety; Safety margins; SFR; SHARP; Simulation; Sodium; Sodium cooled reactors; Solvers; Toolkits
• ISSN: 0029-5493; 1872-759X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2020.110704

•First-of-a-kind HCF estimation for SFR with high fidelity codes was demonstrated.•The results indicate the reduction of the HCF due to less modeling uncertainties.•The tool can be applied to different reactor design. The evaluation of hot channel factor (HCF) is of great significance to the quantification of safety margins for reactor designs. In this paper, HCFs for a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) are evaluated with the Simulation-based High-efficiency Advanced Reactor Prototyping (SHARP) toolkit, which is developed under the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Campaign of DOE for multi-physics reactor performance and safety simulations. The high-fidelity neutronics and thermal hydraulics solvers PROTEUS and Nek5000 in the SHARP toolkit are coupled to perform the multi-physics simulations for HCF evaluation. The HCFs induced by cladding manufacturing tolerance, fissile content mal-distribution, wire orientation and uncertainties on the cladding, coolant, and fuel properties are evaluated for a reference core SFR design (AFR-100). The HCFs calculated with the SHARP toolkit are compared to legacy HCFs for similar reactor types. The comparison demonstrates the reduction or elimination of modeling uncertainties in the calculation of HCFs using high fidelity advanced modeling and simulation tools without the need of expensive experiments. Moreover, the reduction of the uncertainties on HCFs evaluation allows an increase in nominal parameters and safety margin, which in turn improves the economic competitiveness of the SFR.