Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulics Analyses for the Conversion of BR2 to Low Enriched Uranium Fuel

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2015

OSTI ID:1296515

Licht, J.; Bergeron, A.; Dionne, B.; Van den Branden, G; Kalcheva, S; Sikik, E; Koonen, E

The code PLTEMP/ANL version 4.2 was used to perform the steady-state thermal-hydraulic analyses of the BR2 research reactor for conversion from Highly-Enriched to Low Enriched Uranium fuel (HEU and LEU, respectively). Calculations were performed to evaluate different fuel assemblies with respect to the onset of nucleate boiling (ONB), flow instability (FI), critical heat flux (CHF) and fuel temperature at beginning of cycle conditions. The fuel assemblies were characteristic of fresh fuel (0% burnup), highest heat flux (16% burnup), highest power (32% burnup) and highest burnup (46% burnup). Results show that the high heat flux fuel element is limiting for ONB, FI, and CHF, for both HEU and LEU fuel, but that the high power fuel element produces similar margin in a few cases. The maximum fuel temperature similarly occurs in both the high heat flux and high power fuel assemblies for both HEU and LEU fuel. A sensitivity study was also performed to evaluate the variation in fuel temperature due to uncertainties in the thermal conductivity degradation associated with burnup.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) - Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation - Office of Material Management and Minimization (M3)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1296515
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English