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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
T. T. Anderson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 9 | Number 3 | September 1970 | Pages 422-433
Technique | Symposium on Theoretical Models for Predicting In-Reactor Performance of Fuel and Cladding Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT70-A28797
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The hydrodynamics of coolant flow in a natural circulation, nuclear-heated boiler are dependent upon interactions of the generated heat, the available driving head of vapor in the two-phase mixture, and flow of the coolant. Where at steady operating conditions a slight increase in heat generation will induce unstable flow, circulation hydrodynamics can be investigated by small-signal techniques of control system theory. The flow-pressure interaction can be described in terms of the hydraulic impedance which is the frequency-transformed ratio of two perturbed quantities, differential pressure over flow rate. The hydraulic impedance is analogous to acoustic impedance (acoustic pressure/particle velocity) of compressible media and to mechanical impedance (force applied to structure/resulting velocity) of rigid body mechanics. Measurements of the flow-vapor interaction and of the flow-pressure interaction (hydraulic impedance) are compared to a simplified theory, to demonstrate how the impedance approach aids understanding of complex two-phase phenomena. As a practical application, the flow stability of a boiling loop is predicted by measured hydraulic impedances.