Generation IV supercritical water-cooled nuclear reactors: Realistic prospects and research program

Abstract

Existing conditions make possible obtaining information that being discussed openly by wide scientific community could help outlining or even establishing the expediency of a particular area of present and future research. Use link http://www.sciencedirect.com to learn about the topics or areas that most attract researchers from different countries. The Generation IV International Forum (GIF-IV) established in January 2000 has set a goal to improve the new generation of nuclear technologies in the following areas: stability, safety and reliability, economic competitiveness, proliferation resistance and physical protection. The purpose of the present publication is to prepare a discussion of one of the directions of development of fourth-generation NPPs, the groundwork for which has already been laid in thermal power engineering in various countries. The number of papers published annually on this topic is the largest among other similar topics dedicated to nuclear power plants of the fourth generation. Judging from the operating experience of existing nuclear power plants using water as a coolant, it can be ascertained that the tendency of building water-cooled nuclear power plants will remain during the next 30 to 50 years. During the present stage the task in the development of alternative types of reactors will be limited to demonstration of their performance and acceptability for future power engineering and the society. The project of supercritical water-cooled reactor is based on the operating experience of VVER, PWR, BWR reactors (more than 14,000 reactor-years); many years of experience accumulated in operating fossil thermal power plants (more than 400 power units; 20,000 years of operation of power units) using supercritical (25 MPa, 540°C) and super-supercritical (35–37 MPa, 620–700°C) water steam. In Russia more than 140 supercritical pressure units are currently in operation. Numerical calculation and design of supercritical water-cooled reactor (similarly to BR-10 reactor) will allow not only training personnel for future development of this technology, but will also help revealing the most difficult points requiring experimental confirmation with application of independent test facilities, as well as formulating the plan of first priority experimental studies. Knowledge accumulated over the last 10 years in the world allows the following: further specifying the already developed concept; developing a plan of specific priority studies; compiling task order for designing small-power pilot VVER SKP-30 reactor (30 MW-th). The scope of problems that are to be solved to substantiate VVER-SCP reactor and commence designing an experimental reactor with thermal capacity of 30 MW is the same as that in developing any type of nuclear reactor: physics of the reactor core; material related matters (primarily concerned with the reactor pressure vessel, fuel, and fuel rod cladding); thermal hydraulics of rod bundles in the near- and supercritical areas; water chemistry at supercritical pressure; corrosion of materials, development of safety systems. Research must be carried out both in static conditions and under irradiation. The absence in Russia during the extended time period of approved program with allocation of appropriate funding and preservation of the existing status during the coming two or three years will lead to the situation when Russia will be hopelessly lagging behind in the development of SCWR technology.

Thermophysical Properties of Liquids in Not Fully Stable States—From the First Steps to the Current Trends

“…Liquids at supercritical pressures have attracted and continue to attract the attention of researchers as potential coolants in processes requiring reliable heat removal [1,5,22,23]. The research is aimed at elucidating the possibility of practical application of the abovementioned anomalies in thermophysical properties.…”

“…New knowledge obtained for the properties of not fully stable liquids and the revealed fact of the confinement of their relaxation to an equilibrium state with respect to time have found application in novel engineering solutions. These solutions are generally connected with developing technologies for supercritical heat transfer in power generation (especially for 4th generation nuclear reactors in which supercritical water is used as a heat carrier [22,23]) and converting phase transition energy into transport fluids at the microscale [24,25]. In this connection, inkjet printers [26], bubble pumps [27], and fuel transmission and fire-extinguisher technologies [28,29] may be mentioned, as well as various bio-medical applications [30,31].…”

Supercritical-Fluids Thermophysical Properties and Heat Transfer in Power-Engineering Applications

“…Currently, upper limits of pressures and temperatures used in the thermal-power industry are about 30-38 MPa and 600-625°C, respectively (see Table 1). A new direction in SCW application in the power industry has been the development of SCWR concepts (see Table 2), as part of the Generation-IV International Forum (GIF) [27] initiative (for details, see [6,[9][10][11][12][13][28][29][30] [17]) [18].…”

Optimization of Core Regions and Fuel Fractions for Better Power Peaking Factor of 150, 450 and 1,000 MWth Molten Salt Reactor

“…Several studies related to the development of generator IV, especially GFR and VHTR reactors, have been carried out previously [7][8][9][10]. In addition, MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) operates at low pressure with fuel dissolved in the molten salt coolant [11,12]. The MSR has several advantages over current LWR designs due to the liquid nature of the fuel, low salt vapor pressure and high operating temperatures.…”