Thermal–hydraulic analysis of HPLWR fuel assembly cluster

The High-Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR) is the European version of the Supercritical-pressure Water Cooled Reactor (SCWR). Light water reactors at supercritical pressure, being currently under design, are the new generation of nuclear reactors. The present article is a thermal–hydraulic analysis of the HPLWR fuel assembly cluster. The existing thermal hydraulic codes are not capable of analyzing and designing the HPLWR fuel assembly. It is necessary to introduce a new thermal–hydraulic code that can incorporate the parameters and specifications of the HPLWR fuel assembly. The governing equations include energy, mass and momentum equations beside thermal–hydraulic equations are solved numerically using the finite volume (upwind) method. The recent thermal–hydraulic code will be coupled with netronic code to yield a complete analysis of the HPLWR fuel assembly cluster.