Safetydesignmaps:anearlyevaluationofsafetytosupportreactordesignOriginalResearchArticle

Anewtendencyinnuclearreactorconceptualdesignistoincludesafetycriteriathroughaccidentanalysistoaddresstheselectionoftheengineeringsolutionsandthevalueofthemaindesignparameters.Inthiswork,theconceptofdesignmapisusedtocorrelatereactorsafetyperformancewiththedesignparameters.Theeffectofdifferentdesignparametersoncharacteristicsafetyvariables,referredtoas“observablevariables,”extractedfromreactorevolutionduringaccidents,isanalyzed,andtheconceptof“safetydesignmaps”isintroduced.Thesensitivityofthese“observablesvariables”regardingchangesindesignparametersisvisualized. Severalsafetydesignmapsarebuiltfromtheperformanceofanintegraltypereactorduringlossofheatsink(LOHS)andmainsteamlinebreaksequenceswithoutSCRAMtoshowthetechniquepotentiality.Maximumreactorpressurevessel(RPV)pressureandminimumdeparturefromnucleateboilingratioarechosenas“observablevariables”andtheirsensitivitytogeometry-relatedparametersandreactivitycoefficientisstudied.Multiple-parametersingledesignmapsandcombineddesignmapsforbothaccidentalsequencesarebuiltasexamples.Theresultsshowtheusefulnessofthistechniquetobalanceandoptimizereactordesignthroughanearlyengineeringstep. Acomputercode(HUARPE)hasbeendevelopedinordertosimulatethesetransients.Thecoolingcircuit,thesteamdome,thepressurevesselstructuresandcoremodelsareconsidered