MULTIPLE CHOICES OF REACTOR CORE NUCLEAR DESIGN FOR ACP100’S APPLICATION IN DIFFERENT SCENARIOS

Abstract

ACP100 NPP designed by CNNC (China National Nuclear Corporation) is a 125MWe, multi-purpose small modular reactor based on pressurized water reactor technology; it adopts the integrated reactor technology. Different application scenarios bring up different design requirements: some require high compactness, but others care more about a longer cycle length, and some may require a fully mature and conservative design; thus, multiple design choices need to be proposed. Also, the same and most important thing cared by all users is that, the design needs to be validated to satisfy the current nuclear safety standards, and lower cost would be always preferred. Core nuclear design is a key part of the whole NPP design. Basically, nuclear design target of ACP100 is to achieve a reasonable good balance during longer cycle length, larger discharge exposure for fuel assemblies, and maximally using the mature technologies, and of course, with sufficient reactivity control ability for safety assurance. Aiming at satisfying all these different needs maximally, a strategy of supplying multiple nuclear design choices is proposed for ACP100: choice 1. Boron-free plan, this is a compact design with no need for chemistry and volume system, no need for daily boron adjustment and relative waste storage; choice 2. Boron and rod co-controlled plan, this is similar with large commercial PWRs, with a lower power peak factor and suitable for broad location sites. Both choices load 57 units of the same type fuel assemblies CF3S (with height reduced from CF3 fuel assemblies) per cycle, and both adopt partial reload and shuffle fuel management strategy to achieve larger discharge exposure. Gd is loaded in the fuel rods in both choices to help control reactivity. Choice 1 loads much more control rod clusters than choice 2, and of course, reactivity adjustment and compensation during operation is totally different between them. Using suitable and reliable software to simulate the core, through large amount of optimization, both choices achieve a 24-month fuel cycle length; the average discharge exposure of fuel assemblies reach about 40000MWd/tU, which is competitive among SMRs, especially for boron-free ones; and sufficient reactivity control ability and safety margin is validated to fully meet the reactor safety requirements.