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Fuel loading process begins at Palisades
The Palisades nuclear power plant has drawn closer to restart, as plant staff began the process of loading fuel into the reactor vessel on Sunday morning.
The commencement of fuel loading places the Covert, Mich., facility in Mode 6—or the refueling stage—under the plant’s technical specifications, plant owner and operator Holtec International said in a news release. The Palisades reactor core consists of 204 fuel assemblies that include new fuel and partially used fuel from the plant’s most recent operating cycles. According to Holtec, the fuel loading is being conducted in accordance with plant procedures and technical specifications.
Weiping Deng, Yanbin Zhang, Huan Jia, Tao Wan, Weifeng Yang, Chengwen Qiang, Long Li, Fei Wang, Honglin Ge, Fei Ma, Xueying Zhang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 7 | July 2022 | Pages 899-909
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2027177
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A granular flow target coupled with a beam window was studied. The beam window isolates the accelerator from the target, making the system more secure and flexible. Preliminary analyses for the beam window and beam tube, including neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics were performed by Geant4 and ANSYS. The effects of geometry and coolant flow direction on the temperature field and the stress distribution of the beam window are studied. The results show that the maximum temperature can be reduced by 13% through optimization. Comparing the thermal deposition distribution of the beam tube with and without the beam window, we find that there is an extra peak due to the beam window. In addition, the effect of the cooling pattern on the temperature distribution of the beam tube is also studied. The results show that it is reasonable to arrange six U-shaped cooling channels. Detailed analyses show that the material temperature and the mechanical property of the beam window and beam tube meet the design standards, which confirm the possibility of granular flow target with a beam window for engineering application.