Publications related to Advanced heavy-water reactor

Extension of GeN-Foam to departure from nucleate boiling prediction and validation against the OECD/NRC PSBT benchmark

Alessandro Scolaro, Carlo Fiorina, Yuhang Niu, Hao Qin

The prediction of departure from nucleate boiling (DNB) has always been a crucial aspect of thermal-hydraulic codes for the analysis of Light Water Reactors. In this paper, GeN-Foam, a multi-physics code developed based on OpenFOAM, has been enhanced to in ...

Elsevier Science Sa2023

Delayed Hydride Cracking in Irradiated and Unirradiated Zircaloy-2 Cladding

Aaron William Colldeweih

Zirconium alloys used in the nuclear industry are exposed to extreme conditions undergoing high levels of irradiation damage and corrosion. Zircaloy-2 is used as nuclear fuel cladding in boiling water reactors and for the encapsulation of the spallation ta ...

EPFL2022

Advanced methodologies for modeling and assessment of SFR safety functions

Janos Bodi

The present doctoral work was performed to contribute to the conceptual design development and safety assessment of a Generation IV Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) in the frame of the European Sodium Fast Reactor Safety Measures Assessment and Research Tools (ES ...

EPFL2022

Thermodynamic modelling of hydrogen production in sorbent-enhanced biochar-direct chemical looping process

Hydrogen (H-2) has been widely considered the clean energy carrier of choice for emerging renewable energy generation technologies. However, H-2 is a secondary fuel mainly derived from natural gas. Over the past decades, research on developing H-2 producti ...

2022

Analysis of the first COLIBRI fuel rods oscillation campaign in the CROCUS reactor for the European project CORTEX

Andreas Pautz, Vincent Pierre Lamirand, Mathieu Hursin, Carlo Fiorina, Oskari Ville Pakari, Pavel Frajtag, Axel Guy Marie Laureau, Adolfo Rais, Daniel Godat

The Horizon2020 European project CORTEX aims at developing an innovative core monitoring technique that allows detecting anomalies in nuclear reactors, such as excessive vibrations of core internals, flow blockage, or coolant inlet perturbations. The techn ...

2021

Improved methodology for analysis and design of Molten Salt Reactors

Rodrigo Gonzalez Gonzaga De Oliveira

Molten Salt Reactors is a class of advanced reactors that is typically characterised by the presence of a molten inorganic salt of a fissile material as fuel. At the moment, this class of reactors is considered one of the promising options in the long run ...

EPFL2021

Role of mean stress on fatigue behavior of a 316L austenitic stainless steel in LWR and air environments

Philippe Spätig, Hans-Peter Seifert

Mean stress effects on fatigue life of a stainless steel in air and boiling water reactor (BWR) environments were evaluated by load-controlled tests. In stress-life, non-zero mean stresses increase life in low cycle fatigue regime in both environments and ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2021

A Hybrid Approach to Neutron Transport with Thermal-hydraulic Feedback for Reactor Transient Analysis

Alexander Aures

Understanding the time-dependent behaviour of a nuclear reactor following an intended or unintended change of the reactor conditions is of crucial importance to the safe operation of nuclear reactors. Safety evaluations of nuclear reactors involve the anal ...

EPFL2021

Drift-related transport and plasma-neutral interaction in the TCV divertor

Mirko Wensing

Thermonuclear fusion of light atoms is the primary energy source of stars, such as our Sun, that led to the emergence of life on Earth. However, its economic exploitation as a virtually unlimited and clean energy source is yet to be developed. One of the m ...

EPFL2021

Development of a Novel Finite Volume Methodology for Multi-Dimensional Fuel Performance Applications

Alessandro Scolaro

Fuel performance codes are an essential tool for ensuring the safe and economic opera-tion of nuclear reactors. Traditionally, these codes have been developed following a simple 1.5-D modelling approach, where the fuel behavior is simplified by assuming ax ...

EPFL2021

The COLIBRI experimental program in the CROCUS reactor: characterization of the fuel rods oscillator

Andreas Pautz, Vincent Pierre Lamirand, Mathieu Hursin, Carlo Fiorina, Oskari Ville Pakari, Pavel Frajtag, Axel Guy Marie Laureau, Adolfo Rais, Daniel Godat

The present article presents the mechanical characterization of the fuel rods oscillator developed for the purposes of the COLIBRI experimental program in CROCUS. COLIBRI aims at investigating the radiation noise related to fuel vibrations. The main motiva ...

2020

Synthesis of grid compliant substitute natural gas from a representative biogas mixture in a hybrid Ni/Ru catalysed reactor

Andreas Züttel, Emanuele Moioli, Robin Tobias Andreas Mutschler, Marco Calizzi, Alexandre Borsay

We demonstrate biogas upgrading towards full CO2 conversion in mild conditions in a three-step reactor system using Ru- and Ni-based catalysts. In each of the three reactor stages, the temperature is carefully controlled, thus optimizing the reaction therm ...

2020

Development of Advanced Methodologies for Monitoring and Modelling of Neutron Noise in Modern LWR Cores

Dionysios Chionis

Nuclear reactors are inherently stochastic systems, in which neutronic and thermal-hydraulic parameters fluctuate continuously even during steady-state conditions. In addition, structural components vibrate due to the coolant hydraulic forces. This stochas ...

EPFL2020

Systematic Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis of Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Systems

Friederike Bostelmann

Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) technologies have the potential to guarantee energy supply and to reduce the burden of nuclear waste for future generations. For an adequate simulation of these reactor systems, well-established tools that have so far been ...

EPFL2020

The EQL0D fuel cycle procedure and its application to the transition to equilibrium of selected molten salt reactor designs

Boris Aviv Hombourger, Andreas Pautz, Jiri Krepel

In recent years, Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), one of the Generation IV concepts, have noticeably gained in interest. Several molten salt reactor types use fuel in liquid form, bringing various advantages, notably in terms of fuel cycle. However, simulating ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2020

Data-driven distributed frequency/voltage and power sharing control for islanded microgrids

Alireza Karimi, Dongdong Zheng

In this paper, a new data-driven distributed control structure for frequency/voltage regulation and active/reactive power sharing of islanded microgrids is proposed. By using a droop-free concept, the proposed method avoids the inherent timescale separatio ...

IEEE2020

Data-driven distributed frequency/voltage and power sharing control for islanded microgrids

Alireza Karimi, Dongdong Zheng

In this paper, a new data-driven distributed control structure for frequency/voltage regulation and active/reactive power sharing of islanded microgrids is proposed. By using a droop-free concept, the proposed method avoids the inherent timescale separatio ...

2020

An Experimental Programme optimized with Uncertainty Propagation: PETALE in the CROCUS Reactor

Andreas Pautz, Vincent Pierre Lamirand, Axel Guy Marie Laureau, Dimitri Rochman

The PETALE experimental programme in the CROCUS reactor at EPFL intends to contribute to the validation and improvement of neutron nuclear data in the MeV energy range for stainless steel, particularly in the prospect of heavy reflector elements of pressur ...

EPJ Web of conference2019

L-mode-edge negative triangularity tokamak reactor

Olivier Sauter, Laurent Villard, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Dafa Chen, Matteo Fontana

The negative triangularity tokamak (NTT) is a unique reactor concept based on 'power-handling-first' philosophy with the heat exhaust problem as the leading concern. The present paper exposes a reactor concept using L-mode edge based on NTT configuration, ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2019

High-Temperature Water Effects on the Fracture Behaviour of Low-Alloy Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels

Zaiqing Que

The structural integrity of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of light water reactors (LWR) is of utmost importance regarding operation safety and lifetime. High-temperature water (HTW) and hydrogen absorbed from environment, in synergy with irradiation em ...

EPFL2019