Abstract
This paper describes the main objectives, technical content, and status of the H2020 project entitled “High-performance advanced methods and experimental investigations for the safety evaluation of generic Small Modular Reactors (McSAFER)”. The main pillars of this project are the combination of safety-relevant thermal hydraulic experiments and numerical simulations of different approaches for safety evaluations of light water-cooled Small Modular Reactors (SMR). It describes the goals, the consortium, and the involved thermal hydraulic test facilities, e.g., the COSMOS-H (KIT), HWAT (KTH), and MOTEL (LUT), including the experimental programs. It also outlines the different safety assessment methodologies applied to four different SMR-designs, namely the CAREM (CNEA), SMART (KAERI), F-SMR (CEA), and NuScale. These methodologies are multiscale thermal hydraulics, conventional, low order, and high fidelity neutron physical methods used to demonstrate the inherent safety features of SMR-core designs under postulated design-basis-accident conditions. Finally, the status of the investigations is shortly discussed followed by the dissemination activities and an outlook.
Highlights
The interest on the development and deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMR)has in the last years expanded worldwide, including Europe
McSAFER focuses on the development, improvement, validation, and application of numerical simulation tools validated with experimental data generated within the Consortium at several facilities relevant for the majority of SMR-designs such as COSMOS-H (KIT), MOTEL (LUT), and HWAT (KTH)
The third objective is the improvement of the reactor physics, thermal hydraulics, and thermo-mechanics simulations of SMR-cores under nominal and accidental conditions, e.g., Rod Ejection Accident (REA) and the demonstration of the complementarity of advanced and high-fidelity core analysis methods with the traditional ones when applied for licensing
Summary
Has in the last years expanded worldwide, including Europe. Many studies have been carried out in different European countries, e.g., Poland, England, France, and Estonia to discuss the potential technical and economic feasibility of SMR deployment as a part of the energy grid together with large nuclear power plants and renewables [1]. Different SMR concepts based on LWR technology are equipped with similar features to ensure important safety functions such as core subcriticality and core coolability (short and long term) that mainly rely on passive systems. The new core designs, the integral concept, the innovative heat exchangers, the passive heat removal systems, as well as the novel containment designs, represent new challenges for safety demonstration in the frame of a licensing process in the near future. In the particular case of the boron-free core designs, to address the problem of potentially large axial power peaking factors, the optimization of the core loading and of the control rod design needs to be addressed These factors have led to a more heterogeneous core loading and to the use of different control rod materials (SS, AIC, and/or B4C)
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