Teachin g Notes
Operationa l Reacto r Safet y Course
Lecture : 7 – Desig n Issue s an d Powe r Cy cle s fo r Nuclea r Plant s - Rankin e Cycle
Objective :
The objectives of this lecture is to introduc e students to fundam e ntal design issues for nuclear plants - nam e ly how does one go a bout designing a reactor starting from basic power needs and reactor physics and heat tr ansfer including m a terial lim itations and acciden t co nsiderations. Key reactor system s are iden tified and discu ssed in term s of function to assure heat rem oval and safet y. Knief chapters 8, 9 and 10 are used as references f o r this p art o f the lectu r e.
The second part of the lecture (which could be broken up into a separate lecture is to introduce the Rankine power conversion system. Since Knief does not cover power conversion cycles, El-Wakil and other text exce rpts are used to augm ent the discussion.
Ke y Point s t o Brin g Out:
Slid e num be r Point s
3 Establish the key integrating factors in reactor design - nuclear, therm al hydraulics and m aterials an d how each box affects the others in term s of an overall de sign. This is a very im portant concept for this engineering system s course - it brings all of the previous f u n d am ental lec t ures togeth er into a pla n t.
4-7 These slid es cover the steps in nuclear plan t design - each sh ould be reviewed linking one step to the other building on the analyses already presented in previous lectures. Although econom ics was not em phasized in previous lectures it could be reviewed at this tim e.
8- 11 The key points here are the im portance of linear heat rate on fuel perform a nce as a function of local power density as shown in the axial p r of ile. Slide 9 is interes ti ng from the point of view of l ocal power density of PWRs and BW Rs a nd linear heat rate com p arisons.
12 The key points to m a ke about this slide are the very im portant m echanism s listed that affect whet her or not the clad (the first fission product boundary) rem a ins intact . All these factors must be considered in the choice of th e fuel design and power operating condition s.
13 Key point is that the reactor prot ective system is designed to prevent clad failure and possible release of fission products. How this is done is described in the trip system logic to prevent overheating of the fuel pins.
14-16 The m ajor points f o r the se slid es is to show the c o m p lexity o f the plant and w hat is needed to m a intain a safely operating power producing plant. The schem a tics are aim e d to i m press how the system s are integrated to provide operational and safety functions. Go over key system s as identified in slide 16.
If time re mains - begin an introduction to po w er conversion systems - These lectures should be continued for a number of classes to cover the material.
17-22 Introduce power conversion system s - concept of energy, heat and work. Carnot efficiencies and c once p t of irreve r sibility with tem p erature vs entropy diagram s.
23 Review Rankine steam c y cle using T S diagram
24 Review different types of steam gene rators discussing pinch point concept.
24 Review what nuclear power plant cy cles typically have - nam e ly feedwater h eaters for improved therm a l efficiency
MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu
22.091 / 22.903 Nuclear Reactor Safety
Spring 200 8
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