VVER-Type Reactors of Russian Design

Ryzhov, Sergei B.; Mokhov, V. A.; Nikitenko, Mikhail P.; Bessalov, George G.; Podshibyakin, Alexander K.; Anufriev, Dmitry A.; Gado, J.; Rohde, Ulrich L.

doi:10.1007/978-0-387-98149-9_20

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…When the control rod is removed, the fuel follower moves into the core adding fissile material, and when the control rod is inserted, the fuel follower moves out of the core reducing the amount of fuel in the core. This approach has been used in some reactors in the past to increase the efficiency of the control system [20]. In addition, this effect has been studied in the core disassembly phase in sodium-cooled fast reactors [21], and it is used in some small education and teaching reactors like AKR-2 where the core is split into two halves for the shutdown [22].…”

Section: Core Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Draft Design of a Zero-Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

Merk,

Noori-kalkhoran,

Jain

et al. 2024

Energies

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The UK government and many international experts have pointed out that nuclear energy has an important role to play in the transition towards a decarbonised energy system since it is the only freely manageable very low-carbon energy technology with 24/7 availability to complement renewables. Besides current investments in light water reactor technologies, we need innovation for improved fuel usage and reduced waste creation, like that offered by iMAGINE, for the required broad success of nuclear technologies. To allow for quick progress in innovative technologies like iMAGINE and their regulation, a timely investment into urgently needed experimental infrastructure and expertise development will be required to assure the availability of capacities and capabilities. The initial steps to start the development of such a new reactor physics experimental facility to investigate molten salt fast reactor technology are discussed, and a stepwise approach for the development of the experimental facility is described. The down selection for the choice for a diverse control and shutdown system is described through manipulating the reflector (control) and splitting the core (shutdown). The developed innovative core design of having the two core parts in two different rooms opens completely new opportunities and will allow for the manifestation of the request for separated operational and experimental crews, as nowadays requested by regulators into the built environment. The proposed physical separation of safety-relevant operational systems from the experimental room should on the one hand help to ease the access to the facility for visiting experimental specialists. On the other hand, the location of all safety-relevant systems in a now separated access-controlled area for the operational team will limit the risk of misuse through third party access. The planned experimental programme is described with the major steps as follows: core criticality experiments, followed by experiments to determine the neutron flux, neutron spectrum and power distribution as well as experiments to understand the effect of changes in reactivity and flux as a function of salt density, temperature and composition change.

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Section: Core Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Draft Design of a Zero-Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

Merk,

Noori-kalkhoran,

Jain

et al. 2024

Energies

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“…As for the PWR design, the Soviet version was named Water-Water Energetic Reactor (WWER) [36,37], from the Russian Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reaktor (VVER), which was developed by the company currently known as Rosatom. The main differences between the Soviet VVER design and the western PWR are [38]: (i) a hexagonal geometry of the fuel assemblies with the arrangement of the fuel rods in a triangular grid; (ii) the use of a zirconium-niobium alloy as a fuel rod clad material; (iii) the possibility of transporting all large equipment by rail, resulting in a limitation of the outside diameter of the reactor pressure vessel; and (iv) an original design of horizontal steam generators.…”

Section: Russian Pwr Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Global Review of PWR Nuclear Power Plants

2020

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Nuclear energy is presented as a real option in the face of the current problem of climate change and the need to reduce CO2 emissions. The nuclear reactor design with the greatest global impact throughout history and which has the most ambitious development plans is the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). Thus, a global review of such a reactor design is presented in this paper, utilizing the analysis of (i) technical aspects of the different variants of the PWR design implemented over the past eight years, (ii) the level of implementation of PWR nuclear power plants in the world, and (iii) a life extension scenario and future trends in PWR design based on current research and development (R&D) activity. To develop the second analysis, a statistical study of the implementation of the different PWR variants has been carried out. Such a statistical analysis is based on the operating factor, which represents the relative frequency of reactors operating around the world. The results reflect the hegemony of the western variants in the 300 reactors currently operating, highlighting the North American and French versions. Furthermore, a simulation of a possible scenario of increasing the useful life of operational PWRs up to 60 years has been proposed, seeing that in 2050 the generation capacity of nuclear PWRs power plants will decrease by 50%, and the number of operating reactors by 70%.

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“…When the control rod is removed, the fuel follower moves into the core adding fissile material and when the control rod is inserted, the fuel follower moves out of the core reducing the amount of fuel in the core. This approach has been used in some reactors in the past to increase the efficiency of the control system [18]. In addition, this effect has been studied in the core disassembly phase in sodium cooled fast reactors [19] and it is used in some small education and teaching reactors like AKR-2 where the core is split into two halves for the shutdown [20] D. Changing the neutron spectrum into energies with lower fission cross sections and increased leakage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Draft Design of a Zero Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

Merk,

Noori-kalkhoran,

Jain

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The UK government and many international experts have pointed out that nuclear energy has an important role to play in the transition towards a decarbonized energy system since it is the only freely manageable very low-carbon energy technology with 24/7 availability to complement renewables. Besides current investments in light water reactor technologies, we need innovation for improved fuel usage and reduced waste creation, like offered by iMAGINE, for the required broad success of nuclear technologies. To allow quick progress into innovative technologies like iMAGINE and their regulation, a timely investment into urgently needed experimental infrastructure and expertise development will be required to assure the availability of capacities and capabilities. The initial steps to start the development of such a new reactor physics experimental facility to investigate molten salt fast reactor technology are discussed and a stepwise approach for the development of the experimental facility is described. The down selection to the choice for a diverse control and shutdown system is described through manipulating the reflector (control) and splitting the core (shutdown). The developed innovative core design of having the two core parts in two different rooms opens completely new opportunities and will allow to manifest the request for separated operational and experimental crews, as nowadays requested by regulators into the built environment. The proposed physical separation of safety relevant operational systems from the experimental room should on the one hand help to ease the access to the facility for visiting experimental specialists. On the other hand, the location of all safety relevant systems in a now separated access-controlled area for the operational team will limit the risk of misuse through third party access. The planned experimental programme described with the major steps: core criticality experiments, followed by experiments to determine the neutron flux, neutron spectrum, and power distribution as well as experiments to understand the effect of changes in reactivity and flux as a function of salt density, temperature and composition change.

show abstract

VVER-Type Reactors of Russian Design

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

A Draft Design of a Zero-Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

A Draft Design of a Zero-Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

A Global Review of PWR Nuclear Power Plants

A Draft Design of a Zero Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

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