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North American construction is back—smaller and faster—at OPG’s Darlington
“The nuclear renaissance is real here,” said Ontario Power Generation’s Subo Sinnathamby on May 8, one year to the day after OPG secured a final investment decision to build the first of four planned BWRX-300 reactors at its Darlington nuclear power plant, and shortly after the new reactor’s foundation was lifted into place. “We got our license to construct in April and our [final investment decision] in May, and we’ve been off to the races since.”
Michal Cihlář, Pavel Zácha, Jan Uhlíř, Martin Mareček, Václav Dostál, Jan Prehradný
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 12 | December 2023 | Pages 2961-2976
YMSR Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2189549
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Experimental Molten FLiBe Salt Loop (MSL), which was previously damaged during operation, is currently undergoing renovation using a risk-based design approach. An important part of this approach is to reliably define and explore normal and abnormal states of the MSL in order to avoid repeating such failures. A numerical model consisting of heated walls and working fluid volume was created for the ANSYS Fluent code. The quality of this model was checked, and sensitivity analysis for mesh quality was performed. Moreover, another sensitivity analysis was performed for the heat transfer coefficient between the insulation and the surrounding air. A number of different normal and abnormal states were identified, investigated, and described, including the loop filling process, regular operation with natural circulation or forced circulation, heating cutoff without draining, and insulation failure. The results of these investigations will be used for the risk-based design of the MSL renovation; for precise establishment of operation and safety limits, conditions, rules, and procedures before the MSL commissioning; and consequently, on a regular basis, for the risk-based operation, experiments, and maintenance of the MSL.