Subchannel Analysis to Investigate the Fuel Assembly for the Supercritical-water-cooled Power Reactor

Abstract

The supercritical-water-cooled power reactor (SCPR) is expected to reduce power costs compared with those of current LWRs because of its high thermal efficiency and simple reactor system. The high thermal efficiency is obtained by supercritical pressure water cooling. The fuel cladding surface temperature increases locally due to a synergistic effect from the increased coolant temperature, the expanded flow deflection due to coolant density change and the decreased heat transfer coefficient, if the coolant flow distribution is non-uniform in the fuel assembly. Therefore, the SCPR fuel assembly is designed using a subchannel analysis code based on the SILFEED code for BWRs.The SCPR fuel assembly has many square-shaped water rods. The fuel rods are arranged around these water rods. The fuel rod pitch and diameter are 11.2 mm and 10.2 mm, respectively. Since coolant flow distribution in the fuel assembly strongly depends on the gap width between the fuel rod and the water rod, the proper gap width is examined. Subchannel analysis shows that the coolant flow distribution becomes uniform when the gap width is 1.0 mm. The maximum fuel cladding surface temperature is lower than 600 C and the temperature margin of the fuel cladding is increased in the design.