The present invention relates to analyzing a fuel displacement accident; more particularly, relates to linearly combining calculation results of single displacement layouts with a calculation result of a default placement layout to accomplish an analysis.
Nuclear fuels used in a nuclear power plant must be replaced after a cycle of operation to remain operation for the next cycle. Because there are hundreds of fuel bundles in the core, a lot of moving out and moving in must be done when replacing the fuels. Fuel displacement accident rarely happens, but it may cause a big trouble once it happens. With regard to nuclear safety, every fuel placement layout has to be processed with a safety analysis of fuel displacement accident before an operation of a reactor to affirm safety of the core. Hence, to keep a boiling water reactor from danger of fuel displacement accident, a safety analysis of fuel displacement accident is processed before an operation by finding out displacement combinations to be analyzed.
In the early days, fuel displacement accident is analyzed based on the experiences of engineers. They work on the analysis through a “trial-and-error” to find out the most serious fuel displacement. The method of “trial-and-error” requires a lot of human resources and does not guarantee that the most serious fuel displacement can be found. Therefore, other analysis methods are developed, which include a simple filtering method, a parameter analysis method and Fawk's searching method (U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,618).
The simple filtering method applies a two dimensional core calculation or the Haling principle to analyze all fuel displacement possibilities. Then more serious displacements are filtered to be processed with a three dimensional analysis to find out the most serious fuel displacement.
The parameter analysis method defines physical parameters related to seriousness of fuel displacement at first. Then the values of the physical parameters of all fuel bundles are sorted to determine the most serious fuel displacement.
Fawk's searching method have had its patent right since 1998. The method defines a range for searching by a pair of swap variables to find out the most serious fuel displacement. Fawk's searching method has two phases: an initialization phase and a search phase. In the initialization phase, each fuel bundle has a swap variable according to its contribution to the full core power; that is, there is a swap variable for each fuel bundle. In the search phase, two swap variables are randomly selected and the two corresponding fuel bundles are interchanged to form a fuel displacement layout. Then a core analysis tool is used to analyze the fuel displacement layout for finding its effect. Thus next pair of swap variables is changed accordingly. Yet the changing rules are, different among reactors; different reactors have different changing rules, not to mention the experiences of engineers will play major roles in forming the rules.
The first two methods are in lack of accuracy. If a serious fuel displacement is to be found by using the above two methods, a great amount of three dimensional calculations has to be performed and so a lot of time is spent. Concerning the Fawk's method, a common rule is in lack over changing the swap variables among different reactors; in addition, the changing rule relies too much on the experiences of engineers. Basically, the Fawk's method is a search method and does not guarantee that the most serious fuel displacement can be found. To increase the chance of finding out the most serious fuel displacement, the number of pairs of swap variables must be increased and the time for the three dimensional calculations must be extended.
The above methods have the chance to find out the most serious fuel displacement yet with a long-time of processing. Taking a nuclear power plant of a boiling water reactor as an example, if a maximum of difference of minimum critical power ratio (MaxDCPR) at all cycle burnup points for all fuel displacements is to be obtained, the total amount of analysis cases must be incredibly large and the execution time must be awfully long. Hence, the prior arts do not fulfill users' requests on actual use.
The main purpose of the present invention is to analyze a fuel displacement accident with a reduced number of displacement combinations; and thus time for analyzing a fuel displacement accident before operating a reactor is shortened and safety of the reactor core is affirmed.
To achieve the above purpose, the present invention provides a method for analyzing a fuel displacement accident of a boiling water reactor, wherein a Fortran program is used to obtain calculation data for a plurality of single displacement layouts; by using a reactor-core neutronic analysis tool, such as SIMULATE-3, each single displacement layout is processed with a full-core three-dimensional burn up calculation; through an other Fortran program, a plurality of displacement combinations is obtained; two separate critical power ratio (CPR) matrixes of two single displacement layouts corresponding to each displacement combination are obtained; the two CPR matrixes and a CPR matrix of a default placement layout are linearly combined to obtain a CPR matrix of each displacement combination; a minimum CPR (MCPR) at each cycle burnup point is obtained from the CPR matrixes of the displacement combination and the MCPR is subtracted from an MCPR of the default placement layout to obtain a difference of MCPR (DCPR); a maximum DCPR (MaxDCPR) of each displacement combination is obtained from the DCPRS at the cycle burn up points; the displacement combinations are sorted according to their MaxDCPRs; and the first 10 displacement combinations are processed with the full-core three-dimensional burn up calculations again to obtain a largest MaxDCPR as a final analysis result for the fuel displacement accident. Accordingly, a novel method for analyzing a fuel displacement accident of a boiling water reactor is provided.
The present invention will be better understood from the following detailed descriptions of the preferred embodiments according to the present invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which
The following descriptions of the preferred embodiments are provided to understand the features and the structures of the present invention.
Please refer to
(a) Obtaining calculation data of single displacement layouts 11: A computer program is used to obtain calculation data for a plurality of single displacement layouts, wherein the computer program is written in Fortran language and an amount of the single displacement layouts is obtained by multiplying a number of fuel bundles of a quarter-core-symmetric reactor core by a number of fuel types subtracted by one.
(b) Performing a full-core three-dimensional burn up calculation for each single displacement layout 12: By using a reactor-core neutronic analysis tool, each single displacement layout is processed with a full-core three-dimensional burnup calculation; and the reactor-core neutronic analysis tool is SIMULATE-3.
(c) Combining a plurality of CPR matrixes for obtaining a CPR matrix of each displacement combination 13: Through another Fortran program, a plurality of displacement combinations is obtained. Then two critical power ratio (CPR) matrixes of two single displacement layouts corresponding to each displacement combination are obtained. The two CPR matrixes of the two single displacement layouts and a CPR matrix of a default placement layout are linearly combined to obtain a CPR matrix of each displacement combination.
(d) Obtaining a MaxDCPR of each displacement combination 14: A maximum of difference of minimum CPR (MaxDCPR) is obtained for each displacement combination.
(e) Accomplishing an analysis for the fuel displacement accident 15: The displacement combinations are sorted for final analysis of the fuel displacement accident, in order to obtain the final analysis result of fuel displacement accident.
Thus, a novel method for analyzing a fuel displacement accident of a boiling water reactor is provided.
Applying the Present Invention to an Initial Core
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(a) A Fortran program is used to obtain calculation data for 312 single displacement layouts, comprising the following steps:
In step (a2), a number of the single displacement layouts in the quarter quadrant of the reactor core 164 is obtained by multiplying the number of the fuel bundles by the number of fuel types subtracted by 1, wherein the number of the single displacement layouts in the first preferred embodiment is obtained by 624/4×(3−1)=312.
(b) By using a reactor-core neutronic analysis tool, such as SIMULATE-3, a full-core three-dimensional burnup calculation is performed for each of the 312 single displacement layouts.
(c) By using another Fortran program, a plurality of displacement combinations is obtained. Then two CPR matrixes of two single displacement layouts corresponding to each displacement combination are obtained from the results of full-core three-dimensional burnup calculations over the 312 single displacement layouts. And the two CPR matrixes of the two single displacement layouts and the CPR matrix of the default placement layout are linearly combined to obtain a CPR matrix of each displacement combination. Step (c) comprises the following steps:
(d) A MaxDCPR is obtained for each displacement combination. Step (d) comprises the following steps:
(e) The displacement combinations are sorted according to their MaxDCPRS and the first 10 or 100 displacement combinations are processed with the full-core three-dimensional burnup calculations again to obtain a largest MaxDCPR as a final analysis result for the fuel displacement accident.
As a result, the possible displacement layouts found through the above steps are analyzed with a shortened analysis time for the fuel displacement accident before the reactor is operated.
Applying the Present Invention to a Core with Replaced Fuel
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(a) A Fortran program is used to obtain calculation data for 468 single displacement layouts, comprising the following steps:
In step (a2), a number of the single displacement layouts in the quarter quadrant of the reactor core 174 is obtained by multiplying the number of the fuel bundles by the number of fuel types subtracted by 1, wherein the number of single displacement layouts in the second preferred embodiment is obtained by 624/4×(4−1)=468.
(b) By using a reactor-core neutronic analysis tool, such as SIMULATE-3, a full-core three-dimensional burnup calculation is performed for each of the 468 single displacement layouts 12.
(c) By using an other Fortran program, a plurality of displacement combinations is obtained. Then two CPR matrixes of two single displacement layouts corresponding to each displacement combination are obtained from the results of full-core three-dimensional burn up calculations for the 468 single displacement layouts The two CPR matrixes of the two single displacement layouts are linearly combined with the CPR matrix of the default placement layout to obtain a CPR matrix of each displacement combination 13. Step (c) comprises the following steps:
(d) A MaxDCPR is obtained for each displacement combination. Step (d) com p rises the following steps:
(e) The displacement combinations obtained are sorted according to their MaxDCPRs, and the first 10 or 100 displacement combinations are processed with the full-core three-dimensional burnup calculations again to obtain a largest MaxDCPR as a final analysis result for the fuel displacement accident 15.
As a result, the possible displacement layouts found through the above steps are analyzed with a shortened analysis time for the fuel displacement accident before the reactor is operated.
Please refer to
The first CPR matrix (P) and the second CPR matrix (Q) are added, followed by subtracting the third CPR matrix (fol) to constitute a CPR matrix of the first displacement combination as follows:
When the second CPR matrix is mirrored on a Y-axis, a fourth CPR matrix of a third single displacement layout 233 shown in
When the second CPR matrix is mirrored on an X-axis, a fifth CPR matrix of a fourth single displacement layout 234 shown in
When the second CPR matrix is mirrored on a Y-axis and an X-axis, a sixth CPR matrix of a fourth single displacement layout 235 shown in
Through the above steps, when analyzing the initial core, CPR matrixes of 312 single displacement layouts are linearly combined with the CPR matrix of the default placement layout to constitute CPR matrixes of 27332 displacement combinations; and, when analyzing the core with reloaded fuels, CPR matrixes of 468 single displacement layouts are linearly combined with the CPR matrix of the default placement layout to constitute CPR matrixes of 32116 displacement combinations.
To sum up, the present invention provides a method for analyzing a fuel displacement accident of a boiling water reactor, wherein a number of displacement combinations to be analyzed is reduced and thus time for analyzing a fuel displacement accident before operating a reactor is shortened, so that safety of a reactor core is affirmed.
The preferred embodiments herein disclosed are not intended to unnecessarily limit the scope of the invention. Therefore, simple modifications or variations belonging to the equivalent of the scope of the claims and the instructions disclosed herein for a patent are all within the scope of the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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095110161 | Mar 2006 | TW | national |