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NRC shares Duane Arnold restart progress at public hearing
The communities in and around Duane Arnold had a chance on Tuesday evening to hear from Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials on the progress to restart Iowa’s only nuclear power plant in early 2029.
Licensing, inspections and assessments, the noticing process, and the role of the restart panel were among the topics discussed at the public meeting, which was held in Cedar Rapids, Ia., with an option for virtual attendance.
A. Nava-Dominguez, S. Liu, T. Beuthe, B. P. Bromley, A. V. Colton
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 8 | August 2021 | Pages 1216-1236
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1813463
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of advanced uranium-based and thorium-based fuel bundles in a 700-MW(electric)–class pressure tube heavy water reactor (PT-HWR) has the potential for improved performance characteristics with higher burnup, higher fissile fuel utilization, and lower coolant void reactivity while also extracting the energy potential in thorium. In this study, thermal-hydraulic subchannel analyses were performed for a single, high-power (6.5 MW), 12-bundle fuel channel at typical reactor operating conditions for 14 different PT-HWR lattice/core concepts using various types of advanced uranium-based and thorium-based fuels in 37-element and 35-element fuel bundle design concepts. Fuel bundle radial power distributions for fresh fuel at zero burnup were used in the thermal-hydraulic calculations, as a bounding case, along with axial power distributions that are representative of those that may be found in a high-power fuel channel in a PT-HWR core at near-equilibrium refueling conditions. The fuel bundle radial power distributions and fuel channel axial power distributions were determined from previous lattice physics and core physics studies. Based on the subchannel thermal-hydraulic analyses, the LC-05b/CC-04 BUNDLE-37-mod concept and the LC-12b/CC-08 BUNDLE-35 concept are recommended as the best candidates for further full-core system thermal-hydraulic transient analyses, based on critical heat flux and void fraction performance factors. BUNDLE-37 concept LC-01/CC-00 is also recommended as the reference case for future analysis.