Predication of the SMR Critical Core Performance Under Zero Power

Abstract

In Nuclear Power plants, Reactivity Induced Accidents can lead to sever accidents. Rod Ejection Accidents are part of Reactivity Induced Accidents that induced through driven by reactivity insertion due to many failures. Thus, safety analysis of core behaviour under many external rod reactivities in Nuclear power plants are mandatory by regulators or safety authorities. In this research, a new dynamic model is proposed for core safety analysis under Rod Ejection Accidents. Thermal Power and other core parameters predictions are the most important goals for any reactor operation policy, during all periods and specifically at zero power to avoid severe accidents. The proposed model involves of a point kinetics explanation of neutronics combined with thermal hydraulic dynamics in the reactor core to predict its variation of parameters during transients using MATLAB environment. The proposed model is validated through comparing with the transient dynamic responses obtained through previous research for a chosen design of NuScale small modular reactor. In addition, the proposed model is verified through determining the dynamic reactor responses of Rod Ejection Accidents at hot zero power with many perturbations of different control rod ejection. The Performed safety analysis results of validation and the verification demonstrate that, the proposed model represents the reactor core behavior during the rod ejection transients with good prediction of thermal power of core peaks. Moreover, it allowed large explorations of core safety parameters and predicting the performance of its rector core during Rod Ejection Accidents under critical Hot zero power.