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DOE OSTI · 23178672

Transient analysis of a micro-reactor using the DireWolf code suite

Roskoff, N.·Kucukboyaci, V.·Levinsky, A.·Laboure, V.·Harter, J.·Zabriskie, A.·Charlot, L.
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Abstract

Transient analyses of heat pipe micro-reactors are necessary to ensure that hypothetical accident scenarios do not comprise reactor safety. Due to its small size and reliance on heat-pipes for cooling, the micro-reactor design introduced in this paper is a tightly coupled system which requires multi-physics tools to accurately model transient events. Idaho National Laboratory's DireWolf code suite based on the MOOSE framework is tailor-built to model heat-pipe reactors. This paper demonstrates DireWolf's ability to simulate the coupled thermal-neutronics transient behavior of a heat-pipe micro-reactor. The transient events presented here include an inadvertent rotation of all control drums simultaneously and a sudden complete rotation of a single control drum. A detailed description of each event is provided along with simulation results, including time dependent power and temperature distributions, and discussion. (authors)

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21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTSCOMPUTERIZED SIMULATIONCOUPLINGD CODESHEAT PIPESREACTIVITY INSERTIONSREACTOR PHYSICSREACTOR SAFETYSMALL MODULAR REACTORSTEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTIONTRANSIENTS

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Roskoff, N., Kucukboyaci, V., Levinsky, A., Laboure, V., Harter, J., Zabriskie, A., Charlot, L.. 2022-07-01. Transient analysis of a micro-reactor using the DireWolf code suite. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/23178672

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