Sharif Digital Repository

Using of natural circulation concepts in nuclear and non-nuclear industry is very important. One of important methods in new designs of "innovative" fission reactor technologies is natural circulation scene. Natural circulation is based on buoyancy force; density differences between hot and cold legs including core and steam generators, and height of hot and cold zones. In this paper we studied natural circulation phenomena in two different heights of hot and cold zones by using of RELAP5 system code. Natural circulation Flow Map (NCFM) made for both cases and compared with experimental data. We have considered main components and systems of WWER-1000 plant in our model, such as pressure... 

The High-Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR) is the European version of the advance nuclear energy power plant at Supercritical-pressure. A light water reactor at supercritical pressure, being currently under design, is the new generation of nuclear reactors. The aim of this study is to predict the HPLWR neutronic behavior of the axial enrichment profile with an average enrichment of 5 w/o U-235. Neutronic calculations are performed using WIMS and CITATION codes. Changes in neutronic parameter, such as Power Peaking Factor (PPF) are discussed in this paper  

The first results of the movable electrode biasing experiments performed on the IR-T1 tokamak are presented. For this purpose, a movable electrode biasing system was designed, constructed, and installed on the IR-T1 tokamak, and then the positive voltage applied to an electrode inserted inside the tokamak limiter and the plasma current, poloidal and radial components of the magnetic fields, loop voltage, and diamagnetic flux in the absence and presence of the biased electrode were measured. Results compared and discussed  

In this paper, a novel multi-step method is proposed for solving the inverse point kinetics problem using Lagrange polynomial method. By use of this approach, the need for nuclear power history or the Laplace transform is vanished. Furthermore, the accuracy of the method is of order hn for the (n + 1)-point formula, where h is the computational time-step. The three- and five-point formulas of the Lagrange method are used for on-line reactivity calculations and results are benchmarked against reference solutions for different nuclear power forms. Moreover, results for different computational time-steps are compared in each case. The results show the accuracy of the proposed method in all... 

We study the translocation of stiff polymers through a nanopore, driven by the chemical-potential gradient exerted by binding proteins (chaperones) on the trans side of the pore. Bound chaperones prevent backsliding through the pore and, therefore, partially rectify the polymer passage. We show that the sequence of chain monomers with different binding affinity for the chaperones significantly affects the translocation dynamics. In particular, we investigate the effect of the nearest-neighbor adjacency probability of the two monomer types. Depending on the magnitude of the involved binding energies, the translocation speed may either increase or decrease with the adjacency probability. We... 

The analytical evaluation of the capability of Bremsstrahlung highly directional energetic γ-beam to induce photo transmutation of 90Sr (γ,n) 89Sr is presented. Photo transmutation of hazardous nuclear waste of 90Sr, one of the two main sources of heat and radioactivity in spent fuel into valuable nuclear medicine radioisotope of 89Sr is explained. Based on the calculations, a fairly decent fraction of gamma rays in this range are used in transmuting of 90Sr into 89Sr where according to the available experimental data it is shown that by irradiating a 1-cm thick 90Sr sample with lasers of intensity of 1021 W/cm2 and repletion rate of 100Hz for an hour, the reaction activity would be 1.45... 

This study introduces a new identifier for nuclear power plants (NPPs) transients. The proposed identifier performs its function in two steps. First, the transient is identified by the previously developed supervised classifier combining ARIMA model and EBP algorithm. In the second step, the patterns of unknown transients are fed to the identifier based on the semi-supervised learning (SSL). The transductive support vector machine (TSVM) as a semi-supervised algorithm is trained by the labeled data of transients to predict some unlabeled data. The labeled and newly predicted data is then used to train the TSVM for another portion of unlabeled data. Training and prediction is continued until... 

Sensors are one of the most vital instruments in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), and operators and safety systems monitor and analyze various parameters reported by them. Failure to detect sensors malfunctions or anomalies would lead to the considerable consequences. In this research, a new method based on thermal–hydraulic simulation by RELAP5 code and Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) is introduced to detect faulty sensors and estimate their correct value. For design an efficient neural net, seven feature selectors (i.e., Information gain, ReliefF, F-regression, mRMR, Plus-L Minus-R, GA, and PSO), three sigmoid activation functions (i.e., Logistic, Tanh and Elliot), and three training... 

In nuclear reactor core design, achieving the optimized arrangement of fuel assemblies (FAs) is the most important step towards satisfying safety and economic requirements. In most studies, nuclear fuel optimizations have been performed by using a finite number of different types of FAs. However the effect of FA numbers with different enrichments and the difference between their maximum and minimum enrichment values can be important and should be evaluated in the optimization process. This research is aimed at evaluating the effect of using different enrichment values for FAs. This issue has been investigated by focusing on two parameters, namely, the initially selected enrichment and the... 

Deposition of dissolved impurities and corrosion in steam generators is a significant problem in the operation of nuclear power plants. Impurities and corrosion products usually accumulate in the secondary sides of steam generators (SG) and form deposits on the SG surfaces. A high level of impurity concentration close to the SG heating surface causes the corrosion process to occur with more intensity. The aim of this study is to estimate the most probable locations of impurity concentration and deposition in a SG. Equations representing the convection and diffusion in the liquid phase close to the heated surface (the viscous sub layer) are derived. Based on the mass balance of impurities in... 

This article presents the design and implementation of a microcontroller-based system for the automatic movement of control rods in nuclear reactors of either power or research types. This system is controlled automatically, is linked to a personal computer system, and has manual controlling ability as well. The important features of this system are: automatic scram of the control rods, activation of alarm in emergency situations, and the ability to tune the control rod movement course both upwards and downwards. In this system, a small tank has been improvised as a coolant reservoir for pool type reactors such as Tehran Research Reactor and its water level is continuously adjusted by... 

The accuracy of static neutronic parameters in the nuclear reactors depends upon the determination of group constants of the diffusion equation in the desired geometry. Although several methods have been proposed for calculating these parameters, there is still the need for more reliable methods. In this paper a powerful and innovative method based on Spatial Homogenization and Temperature Variation (SHTV) of physical properties of a WWER-1000 nuclear reactor core for calculating the relative power distribution of Fuel Assemblies (FA) and the hot fuel rod, is presented. The method is based on replacing the heterogeneous lattices of materials with different properties by an equivalent... 

In stressful situations such as severe accidents in nuclear power plants, operators need support tools to ease decision making in the selection of accident management measures. Following the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in 1979, the first severe accident in a nuclear power plant, Accident Management Support Tools (AMSTs) were extensively developed and installed in a number of nuclear power plants. Lessons learned from the Fukushima accident highlighted the importance of accident management in mitigation severe accidents and suggested the reconsideration of accident management programs, which in turn created the need for AMSTs adaption and modernization. This paper provides the first... 

This paper deals with the development of a qualified thermal-hydraulic nodalization for modeling Station Black-Out (SBO) accident in PSB-VVER Integral Test Facility (ITF). This study has been performed in the framework of a research project, aiming to develop an appropriate accident management support tool for Bushehr nuclear power plant. In this regard, a nodalization has been developed for thermal-hydraulic modeling of the PSB-VVER ITF by MELCOR integrated code. The nodalization is qualitatively and quantitatively qualified at both steady-state and transient levels. The accuracy of the MELCOR predictions is quantified in the transient level using the Fast Fourier Transform Base Method... 

Fault detection has always an important role in maintaining the system stability and assuring satisfactory and safe operation. In this paper a method based on system identification is used for fault detection on a nuclear reactor. The combination of Extended Kalman Filter and recursive Least Square are used to identify the system parameters. Another goal of this paper is design of a fault tolerant control system for a nuclear reactor during power change operation. The proposed controller is an adaptive neuro-fuzzy controller based on emotional learning. Performance of the controller in term of transient response and robustness against failure is very good and outstanding  

In this paper, design and analysis of a thermal hydraulic integral test facility for Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is presented. The Bushehr Integral Test Facility (BITF) is a test facility designed to model the thermal-hydraulic behaviours of the Bushehr NPP (VVER-1000) pressurized water reactors currently in use in IRAN. These reactors have unique features that differ from other PWR designs. The BITF simulates the major components and systems of the reference NPP, making it possible to examine postulated small and medium break a loss of coolant accidents (LOCAs) and operational transients. The BITF is a volume-scaled model (1:1375). To ensure that gravitational forces remain equal to... 

This study introduces a new identifier for nuclear power plants (NPPs) transients. The proposed identifier changes the representation of input patterns. Change of representation is a semi-supervised learning algorithm which employs both of labeled and unlabeled input data. In the first step, modified self-organizing map (MSOM) carries out an unsupervised learning algorithm on labeled and unlabeled patterns and generates a new metric for input data. In the second step, support vector machine (SVM) as a supervised learning algorithm classifies the input patterns using the generated metric of the first step. In contrast to unsupervised learning algorithms, the proposed identifier does not... 

In this study, accurate estimation of nuclear power plant (NPP) parameters is done using the new and simple technique. The proposed technique using the genetic algorithm (GA) in combination with the Bayesian regularization (BR) and Levenberg- Marquardt (LM) learning algorithms identifies the appropriate architecture for estimation of the target parameters. In the first step, the input patterns features are selected using the features selection (FS) technique. In the second step, the appropriate number of hidden neurons and hidden layers are investigated to provide a more efficient initial population of the architectures. In the third step, the estimation of the target parameter is done using... 

Nowadays, energy supply is one of the most prominent demands of countries in the world. The enhancement in energy efficiency, flexibility for applications in various industrial processes, and the reduction in the environmental impacts of pollutant emissions can be accomplished by using sustainable energy sources. Alternative procedures for heat and electricity production have been developed in the commercial and industrial sectors and focusing on the cogeneration systems, and the contribution of nuclear energy has been increased for improving processes. Nuclear reactors play an essential role in nonelectric applications, and combined heat and energy at different operating temperatures can be... 

Soft Computing (SC) is defined as a group of computational techniques that solve complex problems independent of mathematical models. SC techniques including artificial neural networks (ANNs), fuzzy systems (FSs), evolutionary algorithms (EAs), etc., can solve problems that either cannot be solved by the analytical/conventional methods or require a long computation time. Due to their features, SC techniques are nowadays widely used in scientific and industrial researches. SC techniques have also been included in many types of research related to nuclear power plants (NPPs). In this paper, the applications of SC techniques in NPPs, according to published articles, are presented. The...