Thermal hydraulic feasibility of upgrading the JEEP II heavy water research reactor from 2 to 5 MW

Abstract

This thesis examines the thermal hydraulic feasibility of a power upgrade of the JEEP II research reactor at Institutt for Energiteknikk (IFE). The 2 MWth reactor is modelled in Matlab, a programming language and numerical computing environment. The Matlab script will execute calculations for a fuel pin within a fuel element and the surrounding heavy water, and find heat transfer characteristics, heat fluxes and temperatures. A conservative approach is taken, resulting in maximum values for temperatures and heat fluxes. Tabulated and empirical values from the reactor operation are used to verify the validity of the model. The model of the 2 MWth reactor is then extrapolated to a power of 5 MWth. Mitigating measures to reduce the associated high temperatures from the power extrapolation are taken in the Matlab script. The upgrade is deemed feasible when the 5 MWth fuel pin temperatures and heat flux are equal to or lower than the 2 MWth temperatures and heat flux.