棱柱式超级安全气冷堆堆芯物理特性研究

Research on Core Physical Characteristics of Prismatic Super-safe Gas-cooled Reactor

  • 摘要: 棱柱式超级安全气冷堆是可作为可移动微型核电装置的先进堆型之一。为研究其堆芯物理特性,利用蒙特卡罗程序建立堆芯模型,设计出一种堆芯装载方案和反应性控制方案,研究了燃耗、功率分布、中子通量密度分布、中子能谱、温度负反馈等特性,并初步分析了氙震荡。研究结果表明,该堆芯可实现热功率5 MW、寿期3 a的设计;径向功率分布均匀,轴向功率分段呈凹曲线形式;中子通量密度水平较低;中子能谱受温度影响较大,受燃耗影响较小;温度系数受燃耗、温度影响显著,燃料、活性区石墨系数为负值,反射层石墨系数为小的正值,堆芯具备事故工况下仅依靠温度负反馈自动停堆的安全性。氙震荡幅度很小,满功率停堆的碘坑深度仅-110 pcm,堆芯稳定性好。

     

    Abstract: The prismatic super-safe gas-cooled reactor is one of the advanced reactor types that can be designed as the movable micro nuclear power devices applied in some specific scenarios, such as remote areas, islands, post disaster reconstruction, border national defense and so on. The reactor has superior inherent safety because of graphite core with high temperature resistance and large heat capacity, ceramic particle dispersion fuel almost completely containing fission products, the low power and power density. What’s more, on the basis of high temperature gascooled reactor, the SiC matrix and nofuel zone of fuel pellet further enhances the barrier effect on fission products. Through the design of burnable poison and negative temperature feedback, the reactor can realize automatic shutdown only relying on negative reactivity caused by temperature rise, even if all control rods are pulled out without any emergency measures under accident conditions. From a physical point of view, the risk of core melting and massive release of radioactive materials is avoided. To analyze its core physical characteristics, a core loading scheme and a reactivity control strategy were proposed, and then burnup, distribution of power, distribution of neutron flux density, neutron energy spectrum, reactivity temperature coefficient, xenon oscillation, and xenon reactivity were investigated based on the core model by using Monte Carlo procedure. The results show that the requirement of 5 MW thermal power and 3 a lifetime can be met and the average discharge burnup is 18 700 MW·d/tU. If the fuel enrichment increases from 8.5% to 15%, the lifetime will increase to 10 a and the maximum discharge burnup is 79 600 MW·d/tU. The radial distribution of power is uniform, while the axial is in the shape of piecewise concave curve similar to the distribution trend of thermal neutrons. The maximum neutron flux density is as low as 4.3×1013 cm-2·s-1 at the beginning of lifetime, and the neutron energy spectrum is greatly affected by temperature but less by burnup. Reactivity temperature coefficients, including negative fuel temperature coefficient, negative core graphite temperature coefficient, and small positive reflector graphite temperature coefficient, are influenced by burnup and temperature significantly, which makes the core have the safety of automatic shutdown only relying on negative temperature feedback under accident conditions. The amplitude of xenon oscillation is very small and the reactivity of iodine well is only -110 pcm when the reactor is shutdown at full power, thus the core has great stability. These results will instruct the followup development of gascooled reactor micro devices.

     

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