Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Feasibility study of a dedicated nuclear desalination system: Low-pressure Inherent heat sink Nuclear Desalination plant (LIND)

  • Kim, Ho Sik (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • NO, Hee Cheon (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Jo, YuGwon (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Wibisono, Andhika Feri (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Park, Byung Ha (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Choi, Jinyoung (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Lee, Jeong Ik (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Jeong, Yong Hoon (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering) ;
  • Cho, Nam Zin (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering)
  • Received : 2014.07.24
  • Accepted : 2014.12.10
  • Published : 2015.04.25
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

In this paper, we suggest the conceptual design of a water-cooled reactor system for a low-pressure inherent heat sink nuclear desalination plant (LIND) that applies the safety-related design concepts of high temperature gas-cooled reactors to a water-cooled reactor for inherent and passive safety features. Through a scoping analysis, we found that the current LIND design satisfied several essential thermal-hydraulic and neutronic design requirements. In a thermal-hydraulic analysis using an analytical method based on the Wooton-Epstein correlation, we checked the possibility of safely removing decay heat through the steel containment even if all the active safety systems failed. In a neutronic analysis using the Monte Carlo N-particle transport code, we estimated a cycle length of approximately 6 years under 200 $MW_{th}$ and 4.5% enrichment. The very long cycle length and simple safety features minimize the burdens from the operation, maintenance, and spent-fuel management, with a positive impact on the economic feasibility. Finally, because a nuclear reactor should not be directly coupled to a desalination system to prevent the leakage of radioactive material into the desalinated water, three types of intermediate systems were studied: a steam producing system, a hot water system, and an organic Rankine cycle system.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

Supported by : National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)

References

  1. K. Miller, ADWEC Winter 2012/2013 Electricity and Water Demand Forecasts, Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Company.
  2. A.F. Wibisono, Y.H. Jung, J. Choi, H.S. Kim, J.I. Lee, Y.H. Jeong, H.C. No, Preliminary Design Studies on a Nuclear Seawater Desalination System, Proceedings of ICAPP'12, Chicago, USA, 2012.
  3. Y.H. Jung, Y.H. Jeong, J. Choi, A.F. Wibisono, J.I. Lee, H.C. No, Feasibility study of a small-sized nuclear heat-only plant dedicated to desalination in the UAE, Desalination 337 (2014) 83-97.
  4. IAEA, Optimization of the Coupling of Nuclear Reactors and Desalination Systems, IAEA-TECDOC-1444, 2005.
  5. IAEA, Status of Nuclear Desalination in IAEA Member States, IAEA-TECDOC-1524, 2007.
  6. IAEA, Fuel Performance and Fission Product Behavior in Gas Cooled Reactors, IAEA-TECDOC-978, 1997.
  7. E.J. Opila, R.E. Hann, Paralinear oxidation of CVD SiC in water vapor, J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 80 (1997) 197-205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1151-2916.1997.tb02810.x
  8. Y.H. Lee, C. Yue, R.P. Arnold, T.J. McKrell, M.S. Kazimi, Oxidation of SiC Cladding under Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) Conditions in LWRs, Proceedings of ICAPP'12, Chicago, USA, 2012.
  9. N.E. Todreas, M.S. Kazimi, Nuclear SystemsVolume I: Thermal Hydraulic Fundamentals, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2012.
  10. R.O. Wooton, H.M. Epstein, Heat Transfer from a Parallel Rod Fuel Assembly in a Shipping Container, Battelle Memorial Institute, 1963.
  11. A.M. Abdullah, A. Karameldin, Preliminary Thermal Design of a PWR Containment for Handling Severe Accident Consequences, IAEA-TECDOC-1020, 1998.
  12. S.W. Churchill, H.H.S. Chu, Correlating equations for laminar and turbulent free convection from a vertical plate, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 18 (1975) 1323-1329. https://doi.org/10.1016/0017-9310(75)90243-4
  13. M.D. Islam, I. Kubo, M. Ohadi, A.A. Alili, Measurement of solar energy radiation in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Appl. Energy 86 (2009) 511-515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2008.07.012
  14. R.W. Bowring, A Simple but Accurate Round Tube, Uniform Heat Flux Dryout Correlation over the Pressure Range 0.7 to 17 MPa, AEEW-R-789 UK Atomic Energy Authority, Winfrith, UK, 1972.
  15. D.M. Carpenter, Assessment of Innovative Fuel Designs for High Performance Light Water Reactors, Master's Thesis, MIT, 2006.
  16. IAEA, Thermophysical Properties of Materials for Water Cooled Reactor, IAEA-TECDOC-949, 1997.
  17. IAEA, Thermophysical Properties of Materials for Nuclear Engineering: A Tutorial and Collection of Data, 2008.
  18. X-5 Monte Carlo Team, MCNP - A General Monte Carlo Nparticle Transport Code (Version 5), Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, 2003.
  19. D.L. Poston, H.R. Trellue, User's Manual, Version 2.0 for MONTEBURNS, Version 1.0, LANL Report LA-UR-99-4999, USA, 1999.
  20. A.G. Croff, A User's Manual for the ORIGEN2 Computer Code, ORNL/TM-7175, USA, 1980.
  21. R.E. Macfarlane, D.W. Muir, NJOY-99.0: Code System for Producing Pointwise and Multigroup Neutron and Photon Cross Sections from ENDF/B Data, PSR-480, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, 2000.
  22. A.D. Khawaji, I.K. Kutubkhanah, J.M. Wie, Advances in seawater desalination technologies, Desalination 221 (2008) 47-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2007.01.067
  23. R.K. Sinnott, Coulson & Richardson's Chemical Engineering, Butterworth-Heinemann, UK, Burlington, 1999.
  24. K.C. Kavvadias, I. Khamis, The IAEA DEEP desalination economic model: a critical review, Desalination 257 (2010) 150-157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2010.02.032
  25. B. Saleh, G. Koglbauer, M. Wendland, J. Fischer, Working fluids for low-temperature organic Rankine cycles, Energy 32 (2007) 1210-1221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2006.07.001
  26. I. Vankeirsbilck, B. Vanslambrouck, S. Gusev, M. De Paepe, Organic Rankine Cycle as Efficient Alternative to Steam Cycle for Small Scale Power Generation, Proceeding of HEFAT 2011, 8th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Mauritius, 2011.

Cited by

  1. Contribution of thermal-hydraulic validation tests to the standard design approval of SMART vol.49, pp.7, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2017.06.009