Investigation of boiling water reactor stability and limit-cycle amplitude

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:6007005

Damiano, B; March-Leuba, J A ^[1]; Euler, J A ^[2]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
2. Tennessee Univ., Knoxville, TN (USA). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Galerkin's method has been applied to a boiling water reactor (BWR) dynamics model consisting of the point kinetics equations, which describe the neutronics, and a feedback transfer function, which describes the thermal hydraulics. The result is a low-order approximate solution describing BWR behavior during small-amplitude limit-cycle oscillations. The approximate solution has been used to obtain a stability condition, show that the average reactor power must increase during limit-cycle oscillations, and qualitatively determine how changes in transfer function values affect the limit-cycle amplitude. 6 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: NRC; Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6007005
• Report Number(s): CONF-910714-3; ON: DE91009550
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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BWR TYPE REACTORS
DOPPLER EFFECT
ENERGY TRANSFER
FEEDBACK
FLUID MECHANICS
FUNCTIONS
HEAT TRANSFER
HYDRAULICS
KINETICS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICS
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
OSCILLATIONS
POWER DISTRIBUTION
REACTIVITY
REACTOR KINETICS
REACTOR STABILITY
REACTORS
STABILITY
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
TIME DEPENDENCE
TRANSFER FUNCTIONS
VOID FRACTION
WATER COOLED REACTORS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS