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Godzilla is helping ITER prepare for tokamak assembly
ITER employees stand by Godzilla, the most powerful commercially available industrial robot available. (Photo: ITER)
Many people are familiar with Godzilla as a giant reptilian monster that emerged from the sea off the coast of Japan, the product of radioactive contamination. These days, there is a new Godzilla, but it has a positive—and entirely fact-based—association with nuclear energy. This one has emerged inside the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building of ITER in southern France.
K. O. Ott
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 113 | Number 2 | February 1993 | Pages 122-135
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24002
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simplified model for a liquid-metal-cooled reactor (LMR) transient analysis, in which point kinetics as well as lumped descriptions of the heat transfer equations in all components are applied, is converted from a differential into an integral formulation. All 30 differential balance equations are implicitly solved in terms of convolution integrals. The prompt jump approximation is applied as the strong negative feedback effectively keeps the net reactivity well below prompt critical. After implicit finite differencing of the convolution integrals, the kinetics equation assumes a new form, i.e., the “quadratic dynamics equation.” In this integral formulation, the initial value problem of typical LMR transients can be solved with large time steps (initially I s, later up to 256 s). This then makes transient problems amenable to a treatment on a personal computer. The resulting mathematical model forms the basis for the GW-BASIC program LMR transient calculation (LTC) program. The LTC program has also been converted to QuickBASIC. The running time for a 10-h transient overpower transient is then ≈40 to 10 s, depending on the hardware version (286, 386, or 486 with math coprocessors).