status of iaea gas-cooled reactor technology · pdf filestatus of iaea gas-cooled reactor...

Status of IAEA Gas-Cooled Reactor

Technology Development

Activities

TWG-GCR-23

06 March 2013

Bismark TYOBEKA

International Atomic Energy Agency

Outline • Background and Rationale to the IAEA GCR Project

• Challenges to Commercial Deployment

• IAEA Response to the Challenges – Ongoing and Future Activities

• CRPs

• GCR/HTGR Technology Knowledge Resources

• Information exchange activities

• Education and Training Activities

• Internal and External Coordination

• Support to near-term deployment

• Conclusions


Advisory Body – TWG-GCR • USA

• Turkey

• UK

• South Africa

• Republic of Korea

• Ukraine (new)

• China

• Japan

• Russian Federation

• Indonesia

• India (potential new)


Amongst the lessons learnt in the

Fukushima accident:

Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters

Government of Japan recommended:

Ensure robust cooling functions of reactors and PCVs

→ Passive cooling of residual heat by natural circulation, Diversify

heat sink

Thorough accident management measures

→ Enhancement of self-coolability to extend time before AM

Response to issues concerning the siting with more than one reactor

→ Smaller but more number of modularized reactor

Enhancement of measures to prevent hydrogen explosions

→ Alternative cladding material (instead of Zircaloy)


Reactor core should never melt

or be overheated to

unallowable temperature

Nuclear transients may

never lead to unallowable

power output excursions

or cause unallowable

fuel element overheating

Fuel elements may never

be allowed to corrode

excessively

Core may never be allowed to

deform or change composition

Thermal

stability

Nuclear

stability

Chemical

stability

Mechanical

stability

Reactor cannot melt,

practically no release

of fission products

HTGRs possesses characteristics of a stable

reactor design


Inherent Safety Approach

l Ceramic fuel retains radioactive materials

up to ~2000˚C

l Coated particles stable to beyond

maximum accident temperatures

l Heat removed passively without

primary coolant

l Fuel temperatures remain below design

limits during loss-of-cooling events

Centre Reflector Pebble Bed Side Reflector Core Barrel RPV RCCS Citadel

RadiationConduction

Conduction

Conduction

Convection

Radiation

Convection

Conduction

Radiation

Convection

Conduction

Convection

Radiation

Convection

Conduction

Radiation


Building On Existing Technology Base


Challenges to Commercial

Deployment

(as identified by Member States through the

TWG-GCR)


Fuel

• Need to demonstrate TRISO fuel to required quality level and performance – include tests in prototypic reactor conditions – also include Cs and Ag diffusion measurements and control.

• Extend to higher Burnup (>200,000 MWD/MTU)

• For core exit temperatures above 1000 C (VHTR), fuel temperatures above 1300 may be needed – need to examine high temperature coatings


Materials

• High temperature materials are needed for key components ( reactor vessel material, hot gas ducts, IHX etc)

• Graphite Fabrication and Qualification

• Graphite Disposal and Reuse

• Decommissioning Issues


Safety

• Matching of process heat application to heat source is required

• Engineering demonstration of H2 Production

• Co-location issues of process applications and nuclear supply need to be clearly understood (issues of tritium migration & H2

• Licensing challenges due to limited data especially on cogeneration (e.g. multi-module control room staffing, EPZ, containment v/s confinement etc)


Economics

• Modularity benefits need quantification

• Cost / Benefit - increased performance at higher temperatures v/s potential impacts on cost/reliability

• Market assessment for H2 production and other PHA products


IAEA Response to these

Challenges

main mechanisms of response are

coordinated research projects, information

exchange as well as education and training


Past Activities: CRP 5 and CRP 6

CRP 5 focused on benchmarking exercises for HTR-10,

HTTR, ASTRA, PBMR 400, GT-MHR & PBMM data:

HTGR core physics & thermal hydraulics

Code-to-code comparisons

Code-to-experiment comparisons

– 2 TECDOCs completed,(IAEA TECDOC 1382 & 2nd still to

be printed).

CRP 6 focused on advances in HTGR Fuel design

Fuel design & fabrication

Fuel characterization

Fuel irradiation & PIE testing

Fuel performance modeling

QA/QC & licensing issues

– IAEA TECDOC 1674 published in 2012


On-going: CRP on the Creep Phenomenon

in Irradiated Graphite (since 2009)

• 7 Member States are participating in the CRP

• Objectives:

– (1) Investigation of the status (strengths and weaknesses) of

currently-available creep data, working with the IAEA International

Database on Irradiated Nuclear Graphite Properties.

– (2) In parallel with experimental programs, develop soundly-based

creep models derived from existing knowledge and with applicability

to the ongoing operational and design issues .

– (3) Validate the models with experiments

• Expected Output: A validated model for the irradiation

creep of nuclear graphite based upon a mechanistic

understanding of the controlling processes.


CRP on Uncertainty Analysis in HTGR

Modelling

• The objective is to determine the uncertainty at all stages of

coupled reactor physics/thermal hydraulics and depletion

calculations.

• A benchmark platform for uncertainty analysis in best-

estimate coupled code calculations for design and safety

analysis of HTGRs is being defined and will be used.

• Uncertainty propagation from basic data, engineering

uncertainties, across different scales (multi-scale), and

physics phenomena (multi-physics) will be tested on a

number of benchmark exercises utilizing available

experimental data, published benchmark results and

released design details.



Modelling

Participants

• USA – University of Michigan, Texas A&M University, Penn

State University, Georgia Tech, INL and ORNL

• Germany – GRS

• Russian Federation – Russian Research Centre Kuchartov

Institute

• Republic of Korea – KAERI

• South Africa – Calvera Consultants, NWU, STL??

• China - INET



Modelling

• Three expert meetings held to define the

scope of the CRP: June 2010 (Vienna) and October 2010 (Prague) and July 2011 (Vienna)

• CRP Kick-off Meeting: 11-13 April 2012 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA)

• 1st RCM to be held in Vienna on – 24 – 27 September 2013

International Atomic Energy Agency 19

Reactor Technology Status Reports

International Atomic Energy Agency 20

IAEA High Temperature Gas-Cooled

Reactor Knowledge Base


• Investigate the software and methods used for fission

product release (diffusion, other mechanisms) through

intact or broken coated particles.

• Provide an understanding of fission product transport from

the fuel to core structures and coolant gas (including

chemistry, different mechanisms, dust generation and

transport, activation products, etc.)

• Discuss methodologies used to take fuel movement

(reloads or continuous pebble bed movement) and the fuel

history (burnup, fluence, temperatures, fission product built-

up and decay) into account.

• Discuss available experimental data, code V&V efforts

Technical Meeting on Core-wide Fission Product

Release Source Terms and Isotope Migrations in

HTGRs - 2 - 4 May 2011, Vienna


Technical Meeting on Licensing Experiences for

Past HTGR Projects and Lessons-learned for

current projects

• Held in 15 – 7 December 2011(Vienna) - aimed at

initiating information exchange and sharing of

experiences in the licensing process of HTGR

projects

• Common Technical Licensing issues identified:

– High temperature materials – expansion or development of existing codes

and standardsrocess heat applications – co-location (external hazard,

radiological hazard to the product specifically tritium, process feedback /

interaction)

– Fuel performance and qualification (manufacturing, irradiation tests, quality

control (parameters to control, commercial scale quality)

– Mechanistic source term, Fuel analysis – fuel performance and fission

product transport codes, FP transport, dust, ultimately as public source

term.

•


Technical Meeting on Re-evaluation of Maximum

Operating Temperatures and Accident

Conditions for HTGR Fuel and Structural

Materials 10-12 July 2012 (Vienna)

• Aimed at providing a platform for information-sharing on the

subject of maximum allowable operating temperatures as

well as accident scenarios for high temperature reactors

• Provide as much evidence as possible from both

simulations and experiments.

• Ultimately affirm the safety of HTGRs from the perspective

of acceptable fuel and structural materials

• Consequently establishing new or affirming existing fission

product release acceptance criteria.


Technical Report on the Performance of Past and

Present HTGRs and Test Facilities

• A result from two Technical Meetings on the same subject

• Emphasis is on the data collected through experiments and

benchmarking activities (fuels design and core neutronics,

TH design and safety experiments all the way from Dragon

to HTR-10)

• The report documents the evolution, old data, new data and

also mostly reference original publications as it would be too

much to list all data in one report

• Report was completed last year (2012) and going through

internal publication process.

• Idea is to keep it as a living document through electronic

publication (Share-point Facility) for on-going updates


HTGR Education and Training: Training

Course in HTGR Technology Aspects

• IAEA Course on High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor

Technology was developed

• Dedicated to graduate level students and scientists and

engineers already working in industry, also suitable for

professionals from non-gas-cooled reactor

backgrounds

• Full IAEA course: 4-6 weeks, subdivided into modules

of 3-5 days

• Results in about 13 modules




• Module 1 Overview HTGR Technologies

• Module 2 Core Neutronics Design

• Module 3 Core Thermo-hydraulic Design

• Module 4 Fuel

• Module 5 Materials

• Module 6 Safety

• Module 7 Source Term Management

• Module 8 Power Conversion Systems and Components

• Module 9 Process Heat Applications

• Module 10 Sub-systems

• Module 11 Economics

• Module 12 Licensing Aspects

• Module 13 Decommissioning and waste management




• First Course hosted by INET 22 – 26 October 2012,

Beijing, China

• The course was attended by 35 participants from 10

IAEA Member States

• Proved to be very useful for both HTGR experts and

new-comers to the HTGR technology

• Consideration to host it every year of at-least every

other year, funds permitting.


Training Course in Environmental

Degradation of Components in NPPs

5 – 16 March 2013, Trieste, Italy

• Organised in collaboration with the ICTP (host), NFCM, NAPC,

WCR & FR

• Degradation of materials not only a problem for WCRs but also for

other reactor types such as FBRs, graphite-moderated gas-cooled

reactors and other innovative designs with advanced coolants

such as liquid metal coolants

• Understanding the mechanisms of nuclear damage and possible

mitigation thereof by design is important to both operating NPPs

and advanced designs

• Targeted professionals involved in the field of material science,

physics, chemistry and generally in the design of advanced

reactors


Increasing the International Visibility of

HTGR Technology

• Plenary presentation in the 9th International Conference for

Countries with Small and Medium Electricity Grids – 3 – 6 June

2012, Zadar, Croatia

• Keynote Presentation at the International Conference on Advances

in Nuclear Science and Engineering (ICANSE 2011) 14 – 17

November 2011, Bali, Indonesia

• Session organizer at the Low Carbon Earth Summit (LCES 2011)

19 – 26 October 2011, Dalian, China

• CRP paper presented at the MC2011 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 8 –

12 May 2011.

• Participation in the HTR2012 International Organizing Committee

at the HTR2012 conference, Tokyo, Japan, 28 Oct – 02 Nov 2012


Activities Planned for 2012/13 • Re-evaluation of maximum operating temperatures and accident

conditions for HTR fuel and structural materials – TM 10–12 June 2013,

Vienna

• Development of ‘Deep-burn” concepts using coated HTGR coated

particle fuel for incineration of nuclear waste, surplus fissile materials and

plutonium, 5-7 August 2013, Vienna

• 1st RCM – HTGR Uncertainty Analysis CRP – 24 – 27 September 2013,

Vienna

• 4th RCM Graphite Creep CRP – 22-24 October 2013, Vienna

• TM on the International Knowledgebase on Nuclear Graphite – 21 – 22

October 2013, Vienna

• Training Course on HTGR Technology – 4-8 November 2013, Venue to

be determined (based on availability of funds)


Internal and External Coordination

• INPRO – Planned activity on incorporating HTGRs in the NESA, previously collaborated on the GAINS project

• INPRO-GIF Interface meeting support and participation (on VHTR issues)

• NSNI on the updating of Safety Guides to include GCRs (and FRs).

• NAPC – ICTP Course on Environmental Degradation of Components in NPPs (05 – 16 March 2012), Trieste, Italy

• Collaborated in the EU EUROPAIRS project, ended June 2011

• On-going: Observer in the Safety Review of the Operational History of the AVR reactor by the German government

• OECD-NEA collaboration on the LWR-UAM activity

• Participation in NGNP Annual Technical Review Meetings


Support to near-term deployment

• Construction Technologies for Nuclear Power

Plants – NES Published in December 2011, 2

Regional Workshops in 2011 (China & France) –

collaboration with NPES

• Technical Meeting on Use of Local Labour Force

and Domestic Industry in Construction of NPPs –

October 2011, in collaboration with INIG

• Support to New-Comers in Technology Assessment

for Near-Term Deployment – Workshop in July

2011 – Collaboration with SMR and WCRs and

INIG


Conclusions

• HTGRs have salient safety features that make them a good

alternative to existing technology

• Most potential customers for HTGRs demand proven

technology, and therefore a demonstration plant is needed

urgently for HTGRs to make it to the market

• Developments in China hold the key for demonstration of

HTGR technology and IAEA would rally all the support

where possible to see the HTR-PM support to successful

completion

• Support from other Members States of the TWG-GCR to

China in whatever platform (including bilateral) is crucial


Thank you!

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