Stability of boiling water reactor limit cycle: Bifurcations and chaotic behavior

Conference · Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1989 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA)

OSTI ID:6531679

March-Leuba, J ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)

The work presented in this paper deals with the stability of the boiling water reactor (BWR) limit cycle. Numerical simulations have shown that as a parameter controlling the reactor's linear instability is increased, the limit cycle may become unstable and degenerate, through a cascade of period-doubling pitchfork bifurcations, into a chaotic (i.e., aperiodic) sequence of power oscillations. In this regime, the power oscillations are aperiodic but remain bounded by a strange attractor. It appears, however, that the oscillation amplitude (i.e., peak power) is increased by this phenomenon. This effect can be observed which shows a clear discontinuity in the derivative of the peak power at the bifurcation points. Thus, the bifurcated limit cycle exhibits larger peak powers than extrapolation of the nonbifurcated limit cycle would predict. Thus, the understanding of the bifurcation phenomenon in BWRs is relevant to accident analysis where large peak powers may affect fuel integrity.

• OSTI ID: 6531679
• Report Number(s): CONF-891103-; CODEN: TANSA; TRN: 90-035222
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA), Vol. 60; Conference: Winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and nuclear power and technology exhibit, San Francisco, CA (USA), 26-30 Nov 1989; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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MATHEMATICAL MODELS
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POINCARE GROUPS
REACTIVITY
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
REACTOR KINETICS
ACCIDENTS
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WATER MODERATED REACTORS
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