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Study On Technology and Safety of Floating Nuclear Power Plants Using Small Modular Reactors
Study On Technology and Safety of Floating Nuclear Power Plants Using Small Modular Reactors
Small modular reactors (SMRs) and floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs) are
currently under research and development in many countries. These
technologies have several advantages such as low initial investment, high
safety, and flexibility in construction, operation and application. China is
developing many SMR technologies for both land-based and sea-based, for
instance, ACP100, ACPR50S, DHR400, HTR-PM, etc. and plans to build FNPPs
to be deployed in the disputed waters like the East Sea. Then the
implementation of studies on SMR and FNPP technologies are very necessary
for Vietnam, which contributes to offering solutions to the energy security as
well as the power supply for economic activities on the seas and islands
throughout the country. Moreover, understanding China’s SMR and FNPP
technologies helps Vietnam to prepare for any unusual situations in the East
Sea in the future. From the above points, a team of researchers of Nuclear
Energy Center of the Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology decided to
carry out a project entitled: “Study on technology and safety of floating
nuclear power plants using small modular reactors”, one of the first projects
to conduct research on SMR and FNPP technologies in Vietnam.
Thermal-hydraulic calculations were performed for the NuScale reactor
because the technology has almost all data for modelling in the final safety
analysis reports (FSAR). This is the first time the team has modelled a
reactor using natural circulation. The steady-state was simulated by RELAP5.
The results showed a good agreement with the FSAR, i.e. the values of the
variation in important parameters ranged from 0.0 to 5.9%. After the
verification with steady-state calculations, the RELAP5 was used to simulate
the control rod ejection accident of the NuScale. Figure 4 and Figure 5
illustrated that RELAP5 could simulate the accident qualitatively.
Quantitatively, the simulation results were consistent with the FSAR at the
early stage of the accident. The variation values of the parameters of coolant
mass flow rate in the primary loop and the average temperature of the
coolant in the core were under 10%. However, at the later stage, the
simulation had higher variation values, perhaps resulting from the differences
in calculation tools (i.e. NRELAP and RELAP5) and the limitation on
information of the passive residual heat system. Therefore, it is necessary to
conduct more studies on this problem.
In summary, besides giving the overview of SMR and FNPP technologies in
the world as well as the safety and security issues concerning FNPPs, the
team implemented preliminary studies on the physical characteristics and
thermal-hydraulic analysis of two SMR technologies for FNPPs. In Vietnam,
these studies have contributed to building human capacity for technology
research, safety analysis, calculation and design for SMRs deployed in FNPPs.