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Development and Testing of a Thermal Battery Utilizing Concrete and Thermosiphons for Power Plant Flexibilization
The 45th International Technical Conference on Clean Energy will take place June 20 to 25, 2021,
The Fast-spectrum Transmutation Experimental Facility FASTEF: Main design achievements (part 2: Reactor building design and plant layout) within the FP7-CDT collaborative project of the European Commission
MYRRHA (Multi-purpose hybrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) is the flexible experimental accelerator-driven system (ADS) in development at SCK-CEN in replacement of its material testing reactor BR2. SCK-CEN in association with 17 European partners from industry, research centres and academia, responded to the FP7 (Seventh Framework Programme) call from the European Commission to establish a Central Design Team (CDT) for the design of a Fast Spectrum Transmutation Experimental Facility (FASTEF) able to demonstrate efficient transmutation and associated technology through a system working in subcritical and/or critical mode. The project has started on April 01, 2009 for a period of three years. In this paper, we present the latest concept of the reactor building and the plant layout. The FASTEF facility has evolved quite a lot since the intermediate reporting done at the ICAPP'10 and ICAPP'11 conferences 1,2. Many iterations have been performed to take into account the safety requirements. The present configuration enables an easy operation and maintenance of the facility, including the possibility to change large components of the reactor. In a companion paper 3, we present the latest configuration of the reactor core and primary system. (authors)
Implementation of Arizona's nuclear future 153192.doc10 - 15319
The Arizona Energy Education Fund (AEEF), now a 501(c) (3) non-profit entity, is an assembly of stakeholders from the private sector, government, education and energy industries dedicated to supporting K-12 (kindergarten through 12. grade), community colleges and universities through an enhanced program of smart nuclear generator expansion, isotope production, testing of breeder reactor power plants, recycling spent nuclear fuel in power generation facilities, and nuclear fuel cycle support. AEEF priorities are to collaborate with stakeholders in Arizona to develop safe plans that will make Arizona the most nuclear friendly state benefiting all stakeholders. Long-term plans include promoting: - education of K-12 students as well as the general Arizona population so that they fully understand the benefits and safe use of nuclear power; - reliable supply of medical and industrial radioisotopes; - Arizona as host of new reactor concepts which are being developed and demonstrated; - development of nuclear engineering programs in Arizona universities to drive the development of the next generation of nuclear power plants; and - supply of nuclear-generated electricity to California and Sonora, Mexico to power desalinisation plants in exchange for Colorado River water currently allocated to California and Sonora. The development described will generate significant long-term employment for Arizona while delivering a critical service to the nation. Arizona's location advantages include the lack of significant seismic activity, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods or frigid weather. Interstate highways and railroads are well developed and provide good, all-weather access to many potential development sites. (authors)
An upgraded frequency-selectable laser source (FLS) calibrator for CMB bandpass characterization
One of the biggest challenges for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments comes from the uncertainty in instrument bandpass calibration. Uncertainties in bandpass can limit foreground removal and spectral fitting, which are critical for inflationary and galaxy cluster measurements. CMB experiments currently use Fourier Transform Spectrometers (FTSes) to measure instrument bandpasses. However, FTS systems are currently systematics-limited, so significant improvements in bandpass measurements require novel calibrators. To this end, we developed a Frequency-selectable Laser Source (FLS) calibrator, which uses a laser with adjustable frequency coupled to a system that allows for laser power attenuation. Following initial testing with the first FLS prototype, we developed an upgraded version of the calibrator with improved performance. We present the upgrades to the FLS calibrator, the characterization of the upgraded calibrator and new laser source, and plans for testing with microwave instruments in the field.
An analysis method for experiment power in the ATR
The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is used for testing and qualification of nuclear fuels and materials. The ATR has been irradiating the lead test assembly (LTA) for the planned Ki-Jang Research Reactor (KJRR) in Korea. Irradiation and subsequent Post-Irradiation Examination (PIE) of the LTA will lead to qualification of the fuel to support licensing activities. Qualification of the LTA requires the experiment to meet specific thermal and burn-up conditions. In particular, plate 20 of the experiment must obtain a heat flux between 137 and 200 W/cm{sup 2} with a target U-235 depletion of 79-84%. Due to the limited instrumentation and burn-up monitoring capabilities, assurance of meeting experiment goals is verified through modelling. In order to validate the experiment model using ATR operating data, a methodology was developed to compare the calculated experiment power with ATR power monitoring instrumentation. This paper discusses the methodology used to quantify the experiment power and uncertainty in the model based on ATR operating conditions. (authors)
Effect of rolling motion on critical heat flux for subcooled flow boiling in vertical tube
This paper presents defining characteristics of the critical heat flux (CHF) for the boiling of R-134a in vertical tube operation under rolling motion in marine reactor. It is important to predict CHF of marine reactor having the rolling motion in order to increase the safety of the reactor. Marine Reactor Moving Simulator (MARMS) tests are conducted to measure the critical heat flux using R-134a flowing upward in a uniformly heated vertical tube under rolling motion. MARMS was rotated by motor and mechanical power transmission gear. The CHF tests were performed in a 9.5 mm I.D. test section with heated length of 1 m. Mass fluxes range from 285 to 1300 kg m{sup -2}s{sup -1}, inlet subcooling from 3 to 38 deg. C and outlet pressures from 13 to 24 bar. Amplitudes of rolling range from 15 to 40 degrees and periods from 6 to 12 sec. To convert the test conditions of CHF test using R-134a in water, Katto's fluid-to-fluid modeling was used in present investigation. A CHF correlation is presented which accounts for the effects of pressure, mass flux, inlet subcooling and rolling angle over all conditions tested. Unlike existing transient CHF experiments, CHF ratio of certain mass flux and pressure are different in rolling motion. For the mass fluxes below 500 kg m{sup -2}s{sup -1} at 13, 16 (region of relative low mass flux), CHF ratio was decreased but was increased above that mass flux (region of relative high mass flux). Moreover, CHF tend to enhance in entire mass flux at 24 bar. (authors)
High-Fidelity CFD Simulation of Mixed Convection and Forced Convection in a Pebble Bed Test Reactor Core
The Hermes low-power [35-MW(thermal)] reactor will be built and operated by Kairos Power LLC (KP) to demonstrate its fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR) technology. In the KP FHR, the reactor core is composed of randomly packed pebbles with TRISO fuel particles inside with FLiBe flow upward through the core acting as a coolant. Previous numerical and experimental studies have been limited to either a small-size bed or to a lack of detailed measurements for heat transfer. Here, to address the lack of high-fidelity heat transfer data in a real-size FHR core, in this study, we simulated a pebble bed core with 34 374 pebbles randomly packed, similar to the Hermes reactor's size. The core radius was 14 times that of the pebble diameter, while the core height was 45 times. In this work, we were particularly interested in a mixed convection regime, where buoyancy is important. Therefore, we performed several large-eddy simulations at different Reynolds numbers (160 to 1000) with gravitational force included. The spectral element computational fluid dynamics code NekRS with graphics processing unit acceleration was used for this study. The low-Mach number approximation was applied to address property changes in the FLiBe and to account for buoyancy. A pure hexahedral mesh with 60 million elements was generated by the Voronoi cell method. At the polynomial order of 5, the total degrees of freedom was 7.5 billion. The developed case in this work is the first of its kind in terms of size and complexity. The local numerical data across the domain were obtained and compared with empirical correlations. After examining the data, we found the following conclusions. For pressure drop, the Reger correlation predicted less than a 5% error. On the other hand, for heat transfer, the Wakao correlation outperformed the others. Based on our findings, we recommend the use of the Wakao correlation for the Nusselt number calculation, and for pressure drop, the KTA (Kerntechnischer Ausschuss) correclation, among the available experimental correlations. In conclusion, the Reger direct numerical simulation-driven correlation for pressure drops should also be considered, given its best agreement with our calculations.
Dover Light & Power 10 MWe Coal Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL) (Large Pilot Plant Test - Phase I Feasibility)
A feasibility study was conducted to install a 10 MWe coal direct chemical looping large pilot plant at a host site. The coal direct chemical looping technology was based on The Ohio State University and Babcock & Wilcox iron-based metal oxide technology coupling a moving bed reduction reactor with a circulating fluidized-bed oxidation reactor. The host site was the Dover Light & power Plant in Dover, Ohio. The Electric Power Research Institute performed the host site evaluation. Trinity Consultants prepared the Environmental Information Volume. WorleyParsons Group performed the civil engineering. Clear Skies Consulting served as lead on the Industrial Advisory Committee.
Mid–height seismic isolation of equipment in nuclear power plants
An innovative seismic isolation solution for designers of safety-class equipment in advanced nuclear power plants is introduced. The test specimen was a tall, slender, carbon steel vessel that could represent a reactor vessel, steam generator, or a heat exchanger in a nuclear power plant: 240 inches tall, outer diameter of 60 inches, and wall thickness of 1 inch. The vessel was supported by three radial mounts at its mid-height, near its center of gravity, on a steel frame. The vessel was subjected to three-component ground motions using a 6DOF earthquake simulator. The specimen was filled with water for testing to indirectly account for the fluid and internal equipment present inside a prototype vessel. Three configurations were tested: non-isolated, isolated using single Friction Pendulum (SFP) bearings, and isolated using triple Friction Pendulum (TFP) bearings. The test results demonstrate that mid-height seismic isolation is practical and enables a significant reduction in horizontal spectral accelerations. Furthermore, these outcomes are not specific to the spherical sliding bearings used in the experiments but are broadly applicable to mid-height, seismically isolated equipment.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE TESTING OF A 275 BAR INTEGRALLY GEARED SUPERCRITICAL CO2 COMPRESSOR FOR POWER GENERATION
An integrally geared compressor-expander (compander) for supercritical CO2 (sCO2) was developed to convert thermal energy to electricity. With operating pressures of 275 bar, this turbomachine represents the state of the art in integrally geared machine architecture, hitting compressor inlet densities of 600 kg/m3 and discharge pressures of 275 bar. The product development was funded by the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office under EE0007114 to advance the state of the art in concentrated solar power applications; however, the technology itself is agnostic to heat source, and is predicted to achieve a thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency of 50% for any indirect heat source capable of providing turbine inlet temperatures of 700°C or greater. While the program encompassed the design and testing for the compressor and turbine elements, this paper will focus on the compressor design and operation. The paper will begin with an introduction to the cycle design and analysis of an indirectly heated integrally geared sCO2 compander, a discussion of the mechanical and aerodynamic design of the compressor that is a two stage radial compressor operating subcritically at 27,512 rpm, and will then proceed to describe the test facility and measured data to characterize the performance and robustness of the machine. The paper will conclude with a discussion on lessons learned throughout the course of commissioning and testing. Practical aspects of testing a compressor operating near the dome including complications relating to obtaining an accurate compressor flow map, efficiency calculations, flow unsteadiness, and associated measurement uncertainties will be discussed.
An Assessment of Machine Learning Applied to Ultrasonic Nondestructive Evaluation
In the United States, the nuclear industry performs inservice inspection (ISI) through nondestructive examination (NDE) methods in accordance with guidelines specified in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC), Section XI, Rules for Inservice Inspection of Nuclear Power Plant Components. Ultrasonic nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) is one of the more commonly used techniques for inspecting Class 1 structural components in nuclear power systems. As the number of qualified NDE inspectors declines, the nuclear industry is looking to take advantage of advances in automation to enhance inspection capabilities. Advances in computational power, cloud-based computing, and machine learning algorithms make automated data analysis possible. Machine learning (ML) has shown huge potential in automated data analyses for ultrasonic NDE in the context of weld inspections.
Power Distribution System Synchrophasor Measurements With Non-Gaussian Noises: Real-World Data Testing and Analysis
Not Available
Grid-Forming Wind Power
This presentation is a summary of research conducted by NREL team in the area of developing and testing grid forming controls by wind power.
PacWave South SeaRAY k2 Risk Registers
The SeaRAY is a deployable power system for maritime sensors, monitoring equipment, communications, unmanned underwater vehicles, and other similar payloads. This project is to design, deliver, and test a prototype low-power WEC that lowers the total cost of ownership and provides robust, new capabilities for customers in the maritime environment. Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) is conducted to systematically identify all potential failure modes and their effects on the system, and to analyze the criticality of each risk based on the likelihood of the event and the severity of the impact. Actions may then be recommended to mitigate the criticality of a risk, either by reducing the likelihood of the risk or the severity of its impact. Risk assessment is executed iteratively as an integral part of the design process. By incorporating risk assessment early in the development cycle, mitigation of risk can be achieved cost effectively. The actions recommended to mitigate risk may be subsequently executed, and as the design progresses the risk assessment is reviewed and revised. Review of the risk assessment is integrated into structured design reviews, ensuring that critical risks are comprehended and that the Project will not progress to e.g. fabrication while intolerable risks remain. The risk assessment process results in the population and maintenance of Risk Registers (RRs). Each major system (and as needed, subsystem) will have a distinct RR. This allows each system or subsystem to be assessed individually, rendering the RRs to a manageable size for review.
Beam Line Design and Beam Physics Study of Energy Recovery Linac Free Electron Laser at Peking University
Energy recovering linac (ERL) offers an attractive alternative for generating intense beams of charged particles by approaching the operational efficiency of a storage ring while maintaining the superior beam quality typical of a linear accelerator. In ERLs, the decelerated beam cancels the beam loading effects of the accelerated beam with high repetition rate. Therefore, ERLs can, in principle, accelerate very high average currents with only modest amounts of RF power. So the efficiency of RF power to beam is much higher. Furthermore, the energy of beam to dump is lower, so it will reduce dump radiation. With the successful experiments in large maximum-to-injection energy ratio up to 51:1 and high power FEL up to 14kW, the use of ERL, especially combining with superconducting RF technology, provides a potentially powerful new paradigm for generation of the charged particle beams used in MW FEL, synchrotron radiation sources, high-energy electron cooling devices and so on. The 3+1/2 DC-SC photo injector and two 9cell TESLA superconducting cavity for IR SASE FEL in PKU provides a good platform to achieve high average FEL with Energy Recovery. The work of this thesis is on Beam line design and Beam dynamics study of Energy Recovery Linac Free Electron Laser for Peking University. It is the upgrade of PKU facility, which is under construction. With ERL, this facility can work in CW mode, so it can operate high average beam current without RF power constraint in main linac and generate high average FEL power. Moreover, it provides a test facility to study the key technology in ERL. System parameters are optimized for PKU ERL-FEL. The oscillation FEL output power is studied with different bunch charge, transverse emittance, bunch length and energy spread. The theory of optimal RF power and Q{sub ext} with ERL and without ERL is analyzed and applied to PKU injector and linac including microphonic effect. pace charge effect in the injector and merger is studied for beam energy at ~5MeV. Simulation shows that in the 3+1/2 DC- C injector, there is a region the beam could be over focused by RF electromagnetic field and the transverse emittance in the transport line up to linac will increase instantly due to over focusing. In order to eliminate this effect on beam emittance, several solutions are investigated to avoid over focusing. This result is very important for beam loading experiment for low bunch charge operation. Meanwhile, different merger structures are compared in terms of error sensitivity and emittance increase with space charge effect. In recirculation beam line, a new symmetric 180{degree} arc structure is designed. It fulfills the achromatic condition and adjustable bunch compression. These two parameters are controlled by different Quads knob. With this novel structure, the recirculation lattice can achieve path length adjustment, bunch compression and decompression in a large range. With beamline error, the beam central orbit will deviate from the designed trajectory. An orbit correction system is optimized, which balances between cost and performance of orbit after correction at design level. Different methods are used to estimate its robustness. The BBU instability, especially multi-pass BBU imposed a potentially severe limitation to the average current that can be accelerated in an ERL. Simulation gives the harmful HOMs and predicts that the threshold average current in this machine is much higher than the possible operation current. This work is based on the existing facility in PKU, so it provides guidelines for the facility operation and upgrade in the future. The theoretical analysis of ERL requirement and FEL requirement on beam transport line and beam property paves the way for future ERL research.
Power System Recovery Coordinated with (Non-)Black-Start Generators
Power restoration is an urgent task after a black-out, and recovery efficiency is critical when quantifying system resilience. Multiple elements should be considered to restore the power system quickly and safely. This paper proposes a recovery model to solve a direct-current optimal power flow (DCOPF) based on mixed-integer linear programming (MILP). Since most of the generators cannot start independently, the interaction between black-start (BS) and non-black-start (NBS) generators must be modeled appropriately. The energization status of the NBS is coordinated with the recovery status of transmission lines, and both of them are modeled as binary variables. Also, only after an NBS unit receives the cranking power through connected transmission lines, will it be allowed to participate in the following system dispatch. The amount of cranking power is estimated as a fixed proportion to the maximum generation capacity. The proposed model is validated on several test systems, as well as a 1393-bus representation system of the Puerto Rican electric power grid. Test results demonstrate how the recovery of NBS units and damaged transmission lines can be optimized, resulting in an efficient and well-coordinated recovery procedure.
Modification to the accelerator of the NBI-1B ion source for improving the injection efficiency
Minimizing power loss of a neutral beam imposes modification of the accelerator of the ion source for further improvement of the beam optics. The beam optics can be improved by focusing beamlets. The injection efficiencies by the steering of ion beamlets are investigated numerically to find the optimum modification of the accelerator design of the NBI-1B ion source. The beam power loss was reduced by aperture displacement of three edge beamlets arrays considering power loadings on the beamline components. Successful testing and operation of the ion source at 60 keV/84% of injection efficiency led to the possibility of enhancing the system capability to a 2.4 MW power level at 100 keV/1.9 μP.