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Technological utopianism
Published in Benjamin K. Sovacool, Visions of Energy Futures, 2019
First, understanding the dynamics constraining or accelerating nuclear power reactors, as well as the epistemological assumptions underpinning the expansion of the industry, is essential to properly weighing its costs, benefits, and future role. Even after the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, many analysts have argued that the world remains on the cusp of a “nuclear renaissance,” “nuclear resuscitation,” and a “second nuclear era.”6,7,8,9 Other studies proclaim that SMRs will be the “savior of the nuclear renaissance”10 and represent “the real nuclear renaissance.”11 Consequently, nuclear fission and new reactor designs continue to receive enormous research and development budgets in a number of countries. An increasing share of nuclear R&D funding in several countries is going towards developing and commercializing SMRs. In November 2012, the United States Department of Energy announced that as part of its SMR Licensing Technical Support Program, it would offer financial support of up to $452 million towards the development of the Babcock & Wilcox Company’s mPower SMR and one more SMR design. Other countries have been following suit. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute is currently developing the SMART (System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in India has been developing an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). Russia is in the process of constructing a floating nuclear plant. More recently, in December 2017, the UK government announced that up to £100m will be made available for the development of SMRs, making them “the next big thing in energy.”12
Modular Nuclear Reactors
Published in Yatish T. Shah, Modular Systems for Energy and Fuel Recovery and Conversion, 2019
The Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is designed to use low-enriched uranium plus thorium as a fuel, largely dispensing with the plutonium input of the version for domestic use. About 39% of the power will come from thorium (via in situ conversion to U-233, cf two-thirds in domestic AHWR), and burn-up will be 64 GWd/t. Uranium enrichment level will be 19.75%, giving 4.21% average fissile content of the U-Th fuel. It will have vertical pressure tubes in which the light water coolant under high pressure will boil, circulation being by convection.
Nuclear Power Technologies through Year 2035
Published in D. Yogi Goswami, Frank Kreith, Energy Conversion, 2017
Kenneth D. Kok, Edwin A. Harvego
AHWR: Advance heavy-water reactor is being developed in India. The purpose of this reactor is to use a thorium-based fuel cycle. The thorium-based fuel will be seeded with both U233 and Pu239. It is a 284-MWe reactor moderated with heavy water and cooled with boiling light water. It is designed for a 100-year plant life. The AHWR-LEU is an export version of this design. It will use low-enriched uranium and thorium as fuel.
Effects of Mixing Vane Spacer on Flow and Thermal Behavior of Fluid in Fuel Channels of Nuclear Reactors—A Review
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2020
Satish Kumar Dhurandhar, S. L. Sinha, Shashi Kant Verma
Another nuclear fuel reactor is the advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR). The AHWR is a vertical, pressure tube–type, heavy-water moderated, and boiling light water–cooled, natural circulation reactor (Sinha and Kakodkar29). Two types of fuel pins, such as (Th-233U)O2 and (Th-Pu)O2, are used to fuel the fuel rods in the AHWR. The AHWR fuel cluster is comprised of 54 fuel rods (pins) organized in three concentric rings. The 24 fuel rods fueled with (Th-Pu)O2 are arranged in the outer ring and the middle and inner rings have 18 and 12 fuel pins, respectively, fueled with (Th-233U)O2 (Ref. 29). The cross section of fuel pins and typical fuel cluster of the AHWR are shown in Figs. 2a and 2b, respectively.
Fuzzy Logics as an Integral Part of Evolutionary Algorithms
Published in Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2019
Amit Thakur, Umasankari Kannan
The AHWR is a pressure tube–type thermal reactor with light water as coolant and heavy water as moderator. It has full-length channels and on-power refueling. The initial core LPO of the AHWR consists of placing at least two types of clusters in 444 core locations. The two types of clusters have a fissile content of ~2%, and Gd has been used for making the clusters differentially reactive. This combinatorial optimization problem requires 2444 different core simulations for finding the best LP. The core symmetry has been used to reduce the problem size to 262. The two types of clusters used are named type 1 and type 2. The type 2 fuel is less reactive (due to the presence of Gd) than the type 1 fuel. The EDA as described in Sec. II has been used to solve this problem.
Experimental Investigation on the Effect of Spacer on the Turbulent Mixing in Vertical Pressure Tube–Type Boiling Water Reactor
Published in Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2018
Shashi Kant Verma, S. L. Sinha, D. K. Chandraker
The advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) is a perpendicular, pressure tube–type, heavy water–moderated and boiling light water–cooled natural circulation–based reactor. The fuel bundle of AHWR contains 54 fuel rods ordered in three concentric rings of 12, 18, and 24 fuel rods (Sinha and Kakodkar1). A single-phase-flow situation exists in the reactor rod bundle for the duration of the start-up condition and up to a definite length of rod bundle when it is working at full power. Predicting the thermal margin of the reactor for the period of the start-up condition has necessitated the determination of the turbulent mixing number of the coolant among these subchannels. Thus, it is vital to evaluate the turbulent mixing number between the subchannels of the AHWR rod bundle. The turbulent mixing number is a dimensionless number which depends on the Reynolds number (Re) and gap-to-centroidal ratio (S/δ). Single-phase turbulent mixing experiments were performed for different subchannel arrays like square-square, triangular-triangular, rectangular-rectangular, square-rectangular, and square-triangular by Rowe and Angle,2 Castellana et al.,3 Walton,4 Singh,5 Galbraith and Knudsen,6 Petrunik,7 Rogers and Tahir,8 Kelly and Todreas,9 Sadatomi et al.,10 Kawahara et al.,11 and Sharma and Nayak.12 Sharma and Nayak12 found that the turbulent mixing rate increases with increase in average Re. They also found that the turbulent mixing rate between subchannels 1 and 2, i.e., W'12, is higher as compared to subchannels 3 and 2, i.e., W'32, because subchannels 1 and 2 have higher S/δ as compared to subchannels 3 and 2. The subchannel analysis is known as a useful method to predict local flows and enthalpies in a nuclear fuel bundle.