Power excursion analysis for high burnup cores

Abstract

A study was undertaken of power excursions in high burnup cores. There were three objectives in this study. One was to identify boiling water reactor (BWR) and pressurized water reactor (PWR) transients in which there is significant energy deposition in the fuel. Another was to analyze the response of BWRs to the rod drop accident (RDA) and other transients in which there is a power excursion. The last objective was to investigate the sources of uncertainty in the RDA analysis. In a boiling water reactor, the events identified as having significant energy deposition in the fuel were a rod drop accident, a recirculation flow control failure, and the overpressure events; in a pressurized water reactor, they were a rod ejection accident and boron dilution events. The RDA analysis was done with RAMONA-4B, a computer code that models the space- dependent neutron kinetics throughout the core along with the thermal hydraulics in the core, vessel, and steamline. The results showed that the calculated maximum fuel enthalpy in high burnup fuel will be affected by core design, initial conditions, and modeling assumptions. The important uncertainties in each of these categories are discussed in the report.