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From SPARC to ARC: CFS prepares for a first-of-a-kind fusion plant
Commonwealth Fusion Systems makes no small plans. The company wants to build a 400-MWe magnetic confinement fusion power plant called ARC near Richmond, Va., and begin operating it in the early 2030s. And the plans don’t end there. CFS wants to deploy “thousands” of fusion power plants capable of accelerating a global energy transition.
Edward Lum, Chad L. Pope
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 5 | May 2021 | Pages 761-770
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1794190
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper discusses a new method of simulating the fuel assembly duct-bowing reactivity coefficient for EBR-II run 138B. Quantification of the fuel assembly duct-bowing reactivity effect in liquid metal–cooled fast reactors has been a persistent problem since they were first designed and operated. Simulation of the duct-bowing reactivity effect is difficult because the level of detail required to simulate the effect has exceeded most modeling capabilities. The new method outlined in this paper utilizes the finite element analysis code ANSYS to analyze the thermal and structural components. The displacement of the fuel assembly duct due to thermal expansion and mechanical interaction was calculated by ANSYS using recorded EBR-II run 138B temperature and power boundary value data. The displacement values were incorporated into to a Monte Carlo model of EBR-II run 138B and keff was calculated. Multiple Monte Carlo calculations were performed with duct displacement values corresponding to different reactor temperatures. Using the calculated keff values associated with the different duct displacement results allowed calculation of the duct-bowing reactivity coefficient. The duct-bowing reactivity coefficient was calculated to be −14.5 × 10−4 $/°C/ ± 4.4%.