Yonggwang Nuclear Unit Research Articles

Development of NSSS Thermal-Hydraulic Model for KNPEC-2 Simulator Using the Best-Estimate Code RETRAN-3D

The Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS) thermal-hydraulic model adopted in the Korea Nuclear Plant Education Center (KNPEC)-2 simulator was provided in the early 1980s. The reference plant for KNPEC-2 is the Yong Gwang Nuclear Unit 1, which is a Westinghouse-type 3-loop, 950 MW(electric) pressurized water reactor. Because of the limited computational capability at that time, it uses overly simplified physical models and assumptions for a real-time simulation of NSSS thermal-hydraulic transients. This may entail inaccurate results and thus, the possibility of so-called “negative training,” especially for complicated two-phase flows in the reactor coolant system. To resolve the problem, we developed a realistic NSSS thermal-hydraulic program (named ARTS code) based on the best-estimate code RETRAN-3D. The systematic assessment of ARTS has been conducted by both a stand-alone test and an integrated test in the simulator environment. The non-integrated stand-alone test (NIST) results were reasonable in terms of accuracy, real-time simulation capability, and robustness. After successful completion of the NIST, ARTS was integrated with a 3-D reactor kinetics model and other system models. The site acceptance test (SAT) has been completed successively and confirmed to comply with the ANSI/ANS-3.5-1998 simulator software performance criteria. This paper presents our efforts for the ARTS development and some test results of the NIST and SAT.

KeproVt : underwater robotic system for visual inspection of nuclear reactor internals

An underwater robotic system for visual inspection of reactor vessel internals has been developed. The Korea Electric Power Robot for Visual Test (KeproVt) consists of an underwater robot, a vision processor based measuring unit, a master control station and a servo control station. The vision processor based measuring unit employs a first-of-a-kind engineering technology in nuclear robotics. The vision processor makes use of a camera located at the top of the water level referenced to the reactor center line to get an image of the robot, and computes the location and orientation of the robot. The robot guided by the control station with the measuring unit can be controlled to have any motion at any position in the reactor vessel with ±1 cm positioning and ±2° heading accuracies with enough precision to inspect reactor internals. A simple and fast installation process is emphasized in the developed system. The installation process consists of hooking a vision camera on the guide rail of the refueling machine and putting a small robot (14.5 kg in weight) in the reactor cavity pool. The easy installation and automatic operation meet the demand of shortening the reactor outage and reducing the number of inspection personnel. The developed robotic system was successfully deployed at the Yonggwang Nuclear Unit 1 for the visual inspection of reactor internals.