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Title: Narrowing transient testing pulse widths to enhance LWR RIA experiment design in the TREAT facility

Journal Article · · Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
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The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility provided thousands of transient irradiations and plays a crucial role in nuclear-heated safety research. The facility’s flexible design and multi-mission nature saw historic experiments for numerous reactor fuels and transient types but was never specifically adapted to address very-brief pulse transients akin to postulated Light Water Reactor (LWR) Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA). Since the behaviors of fuel under these conditions depends strongly on energy input duration and resulting cladding time/temperature response under pellet cladding mechanical interactions, this three-year project was conceived to investigate new pulse-narrowing capabilities. Kinetic models showed incremental improvements for minor facility enhancements including increased reactivity step insertions (to initiate the power pulse) and slightly-increased transient rod drive speed for pulse termination (“clipping”). Replacing peak fuel assemblies, repositioning non-transient control rods to hold down the “hot side” of the core, and balancing against required excess reactivity needs, the limiting fuel assembly power can be reduced by ~20 %. Furthermore, this is a remarkable discovery of latent capability in TREAT, not only in enabling the subject capabilities for reduced pulse widths, but also significantly “uprating” the core’s transient energy capacity. Incremental improvements can likely enhance TREAT’s capability into BWR-relevant missions; briefer PWR pulse shapes can only be achieved with an advanced clipping system. Helium-3 (3He) was found to offer the greatest benefits for clipping design and overall performance. A unique concept showed great promise for enabling a 3He-based system with a reasonable cost; this design concept will likely become the focal point of future work.

Research Organization:
Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517; 17A1-024FP
OSTI ID:
1557657
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1642266
Report Number(s):
INL/JOU-18-51194-Rev000
Journal Information:
Annals of Nuclear Energy (Oxford), Vol. 124, Issue C; ISSN 0306-4549
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (8)

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Fast-Neutron Hodoscope at TREAT: Methods for Quantitative Determination of Fuel Dispersal journal January 1982
The Fuel Accident Condition Simulator (FACS) furnace system for high temperature performance testing of VHTR fuel journal October 2012
Behavior of 60 to 78MWd/kgU PWR Fuels under Reactivity-Initiated Accident Conditions journal September 2006
Linear variable differential transformer (LVDT)-based elongation measurements in Advanced Test Reactor high temperature irradiation testing journal January 2012
The Serpent Monte Carlo code: Status, development and applications in 2013 journal August 2015
The Composition of Aerosols Generated During a Severe Reactor Accident: Experimental Results from the Power Burst Facility Severe Fuel Damage Test 1-4 journal March 1994
Contributions from the ACRR in-pile experiments to the understanding of key phenomena influencing unprotected loss of flow accident simulations in LMFBRs journal March 1987

Cited By (3)

Development of Advanced Instrumentation for Transient Testing journal August 2019
Experimental Analysis of the Influence of Factors Acting on the Layer Thickness Formed by Anodic Oxidation of Aluminium journal January 2019
Quasi-Diffusion Method with 3-D Cross Sections for TREAT Core Analysis journal December 2019

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11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
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22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
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Light Water Reactor
Pulse Widths
Reactivity Initiated Accidents
Transient Testing
TREAT
MCNP
RELAP
Accident Analysis
Helium-3 Control
Kinetics Studies
LDRD
Core Power Flattening
PHYSOR
Clipping