The Simplified Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor (SSCWR), a new SCWR design

Abstract

The Supercritical Water Cooled Reactor (SCWR) was chosen as one of the Generation IV reactors by GIF. At the moment, a number of concepts exist, such as the American SCWR, the Canadian CANDU–SCWR, the European HPLWR (High Performance Light Water Reactor), the Japanese Super LWR and the Korean SCWR. The driving force behind the developments is the fact that the fossil fired power plants are continuously increasing their efficiency by use of higher pressures and temperatures. The SCWR has numerous advantages over today's wide-spread Light Water Reactors. On the other hand, the scientific community must cope with various challenges before the first power plants of this type can be built. The European and the Japanese concepts are the most promising, although the complicated water flow path repeatedly sets newer challenges. Simplicity is always a good choice in reactor design, thus the authors went back to the basic once-through cycle, significantly improving it. With the combination of zirconium-hydride as extra moderator, axially varying fuel enrichment and moderation, longer active length and smaller core diameter (resulting in thinner walls for the reactor pressure vessel), a new and simpler design is proposed in this paper. This design is called Simplified Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor (SSCWR) and adapts better for the different operating conditions and burn-up, therefore it is inherently safer and more reliable.