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Nuclear News 40 Under 40 discuss the future of nuclear
Seven members of the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40 came together on March 4 to discuss the current state of nuclear energy and what the future might hold for science, industry, and the public in terms of nuclear development.
To hear more insights from this talented group of young professionals, watch the “40 Under 40 Roundtable: Perspectives from Nuclear’s Rising Stars” on the ANS website.
Po-Jung Chiu, Chung-Kung Lo, Tai-Hung Wu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 1 | January 2023 | Pages 53-68
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2105633
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We discuss the specific risk significance in the extended pre-defueled (PD) phase of the decommissioning process, particularly if spent fuels are still in the core due to the low-power and shutdown refueling plant operating state (POS). The issue of full-core discharge capability after permanent shutdown during the PD phase motivated this study on the evolution of system risks using a reference plant design of the two-unit/BWR-4/Mark-I.
The effects of the reactor core and the spent fuel pool (SFP) on the incorporative risks are explored. The probabilistic risk assessment methodology, including the technical elements, is systematically developed by defining two primary configurations from the internal event analysis under the models 30, 60, 180, 365, and 942 days after permanent shutdown, respectively. The movable refueling gate between the reactor core and the SFP, as well as the residual heat removal (RHR) system, have been subjected to two sensitivity studies on system configurations in order to examine the induced impacts by the refueling gate and cooling systems. MELCOR, a realistic thermal-hydraulic code, is utilized to determine the decay heat levels and the success criteria after shutdown. The two operator tasks are assumed to be independent in the situation of decreasing decay heat after shutdown and a long time available for human actions.
In addition, the WinNUPRA software package is used for the fuel uncovery sequence quantification. Plant-centered loss-of-offsite power (LOOP), flow diversion loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs) to the suppression pool via the RHR system, switchyard-centered LOOPs, and LOCAs in the connected systems via the RHR, have proven to be the most significant initiating events for the configurations. When compared to the low-power and shutdown refueling POS, the realistic quantification results in terms of fuel uncovery frequencies and the evolution of the risk profile for the basic and sensitivity configurations meet the expectations under the PD-phase condition of low-decay heat levels.
