Study on the stability behaviour of a natural circulation pressure tube type boiling water reactor

Abstract

The stability behaviour of a natural circulation pressure tube type boiling water reactor (BWR) has been investigated analytically. The analytical model considers homogeneous two-phase flow, a point kinetics model for the neutron dynamics and a lumped heat transfer model for the fuel dynamics. The results indicate that both Type I and Type II density-wave instabilities can occur in the reactor in both in-phase and out-of-phase mode of oscillations in the boiling channels of the reactor. The delayed neutrons were found to have strong influence on the stability of Type I and Type II density-wave instabilities. Also, the stability of the reactor is found to increase with increase in negative void reactivity coefficient unlike that observed previously in vessel type BWRs. Decay ratio map was predicted considering the effects of channel power, channel inlet subcooling, feed water temperature and channel exit quality, which are useful for the design of the reactor.