A brief description of the development history of engineering computer codes for VVER reactor calculations, which have been developed in the VVER physics department of NRC Kurchatov institute, since the end of 1950 s till now, are given in the report. The modern status of the basic codes of the Kurchatov institute for VVER fuel loadings design and safety analysis (TVS-M, KASKAD-BIPR-PERMAK, BIPR8, PERMAK-3D, SC1, TOPRA, ATHLET/BIPR-VVER, TIGR-1, etc.) is characterized from various points of view. Some specific problems which are shown during designing of fuel cycles, optimisation of fuel and technologies will be commented. They demand decisions within the complex of programs and, accordingly, demand the further development of a complex or working out and inclusion in a complex of new programs.
The paper discusses experimental and numerical investigations on intensification of thermal and mass exchange which were performed by National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute” over the past years. Because of enhancing the power of active power plants, intensification of thermal and mass exchange investigations are performed by a number of Russian research and design organizations. Recently, many designs of heat mass transfer intensifier grids have been proposed. NRC “Kurchatov Institute” has accomplished a large scope of experimental investigations to study efficiency of intensifier grids of various types. The outcomes of experimental investigations can be used in verification of computational models and codes. On the basis of experimental data, we derived correlations to calculate coolant mixing and critical heat flux mixing in rod bundles equipped with intensifier grids. The acquired correlations were integrated in subchannel code SC-INT.
The present report is devoted to the analysis of the thermophysical properties of supercritical water in the cores of supercritical water-cooled reactors (SCWR) and results of the experiments with multi-rod bundles cooled with supercritical fluid (mainly – water) flows carried out in different countries. The most important results and specific heat transfer regimes observed in the experiments were summarized. On the basis of the experimental data analysis the design of a thermophysical test facility for full-scale experiments for the determination of the heat and mass exchange regimes and supercritical water hydraulic parameters in multi-rod bundles was elaborated. The need for the experimental data for the proper description of the said processes was stated, and the importance of obtaining them was underlined. The list of the controlled parameters and experiments was created.
As long as VVER-440 reactors exist, their fuel design is subject to ongoing improvement. Efforts to find the optimal fuel design continue and encompass increasingly extending ranges of both geometry and material parameters of fuel assemblies. This paper presents the results of optimized radial enrichment profiling for RK3+ fuel assemblies and discusses whether it is absolutely necessary to use burnable absorbers (Gd2O3 rods) in fuel assemblies suggested for prospective fuel cycles. Regarding RK3+ and RK2 fuel assemblies, this paper also presents thermohydraulic data yielded by computations performed using SC-1 certified software for a VVER-440 seven-assembly core fragment. These computations show that - compared to RK2 assemblies of the same capacity - RK3+ assemblies with optimized enrichment profile have more uniform radial temperature distributions and lower maximum outlet temperatures.
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