Thermal hydraulics of nuclear reactor as a basis of reactor safety has a very important role in reactor design and control. The thermal-hydraulic analysis provides input data to the reactor-physics analysis, whereas the latter gives information about the distribution of heat sources, which is needed to perform the thermal-hydraulic analysis. In this study single heated channel model as a very f...

The following discussion of PWR steady state and transient design limits is extracted from the theses of Carter Shuffler and Jarrod Trant while the BWR discussion is extracted from Paolo Ferroni's thesis (covers steady state only). These limits are a simplified and narrower discussion than the relevant NRC standard review plan you will also be referred to. All materials are directly extracted f...

The effect of variation in thermal conductivity of light water reactor fuel elements on core response during loss-of-coolant accident scenarios is examined. Initially, a simplified numerical analysis is utilized to determine the time scales associated with dissipation of stored energy from the fuel into the coolant once the fission reaction is stopped. The analysis is then followed by full reac...

This report presents the software engineering effort under way at ANL towards a comprehensive integrated computational framework (SHARP) for high fidelity simulations of sodium cooled fast reactors. The primary objective of this framework is to provide accurate and flexible analysis tools to nuclear reactor designers by simulating multiphysics phenomena happening in complex reactor geometries. ...

Several different fuel failure criteria have been used in previously NRC-sponsored SFP accident studies. Benjamin, et. al. used the onset of runaway fuel clad oxidation as the fuel failure criterion in NUREG/CR-0649 [Ref. 1]. This criterion was criticized because clad rupture can occur at a relatively low temperature causing a gap release. The consequences of gap release can be significant if t...