Journal of Physics: Conference Series

PAPER • OPEN ACCESS

Developing SupercomputerTwins Of NuclearPowerPlants ForVarious

Applications With The Use Of Russian 3D Numerical Analysis Codes
To cite this article: V A Bolnov et al 2020 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1683 042014

View the article online for updates and enhancements.

This content was downloaded from IP address 158.46.215.82 on 20/03/2021 at 18:28

The Third Conference "Problems of Thermal Physics and Power Engineering" IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1683 (2020) 042014 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1683/4/042014

Developing SupercomputerTwins Of NuclearPowerPlants

ForVarious Applications With The Use Of Russian 3D
Numerical Analysis Codes

V A Bolnov1, M A Bolshukhin1, A V Budnikov1, S M Dmitriev2, M V Zotova1,

I S Zotov1, V V Petrunin1, D N Sveshnikov1 and R I Romanov1
1
JSC “Afrikantov OKBM”,
Russia, 603074 Nizhny Novgorod, Burnakvsky proezd, 15
2
Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University n.a. R.E. Alekseev,
Russia, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Minin St., 24

[email protected]

Abstract. The article describes the technology of the supercomputer twin of a nuclear power
plants, which describes the main circulation circuit of the coolant. The technology is based on a
joint one-dimensional and three-dimensional description of a reactor expanding the field of
application of traditional one-dimensional system codes for describing fundamentally three-
dimensional processes in reactor plenum. A description of the technology and verification data
based on experimental studies is provided. The application of this technology to the analysis of
the partial operating modes of the RITM-200 reactor plant was demonstrated, which made it
possible to mitigate power limitations when disconnecting part of the heat exchange surface of
the steam generator, reduce the costs of repair of the reactor plant associated with the
replacement of steam generator cassettes, and avoid prolonged shutdown of a nuclear
icebreaker.

1. Introduction
One of the priority lines of work for JSC “Afrikantov OKBM” is designing and complete deliveries of
reactor plants for nuclear-powered icebreakers and ships, which ensure the progress and development
of the Arctic region and Northern Sea Route. The specific features of the plants consist in heightened
requirements for the mass-and-size characteristics, for reliability and repairability of the entire plant
and its elements, for simplicity of construction and maintenance. The RITM-200 integral reactor plant,
which has been developed by JSC “Afrikantov OKBM”, completely satisfies the said requirements.
RITM-200 is designed for double-draft multipurpose nuclear-powered icebreakers, which can
combine the functions of open-sea icebreakers and limited-draft icebreakers. The RITM-200 reactor
plant has a higher power than the currently operated KLT-40 reactor plant; it almost two times lighter
and more compact and, accordingly, cheaper in terms of material consumption; and it takes smaller
space in a ship. Along with the increased power and reduced material consumption, the reactor plant
design validated an assigned lifetime extended more than two times for the main equipment as
compared to the reactor plants on currently operated icebreakers.
Considering the specificity of operating nuclear-powered icebreakers and ships under the Arctic
conditions, an extremely important task is to ensure the survivability for the reactor plant in case any
individual equipment fails. However, the integral layout of the RITM-200 reactor plant reduces the
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution
of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
The Third Conference "Problems of Thermal Physics and Power Engineering" IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1683 (2020) 042014 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1683/4/042014

plant repairability in case an individual steam generator cassette has to be replaced after it fails
because of an inter-circuit leak. To restore the steam generator operability, to prevent a long-time and
costly repair, to eliminate an icebreaker downtime, the reactor plant design implements a modular
construction of a steam generator cassette and ensures an independent shutdown for leaking steam
generator modules (SGM). However, shutting down the leaking steam generator modules results in
thermal cyclic loads, which may have an effect on the lifetime of the heat exchange equipment; and in
the case of incomplete mixing of non-isothermal flows in reactor plenums, it may result in degraded
core thermal reliability characteristics.
These negative factors require additional studies (R&D work) in order to validate a possibility of
subsequent reliable plant operation, to determine the plant permissible power level and to analyse the
effect to the lifetime characteristics of a steam generator cassette. While being based upon a
meticulous experimental development with the use of full-size testing, the traditional approach to
R&D work, in terms of the reactor plant, has considerable limitations caused by the substantial time
and high cost. In a number of cases, full-size testing in the required scope is simply impossible due to
technical reasons, that’s why the innovative supercomputer twin technology turns out to be especially
vital for doing the studies into and validate technical characteristics of reactor plants. The
supercomputer twin technology is based upon using state-of-the-art 3D thermal-hydraulic analysis
codes and supercomputers.

2. The supercomputer twin technology

The technology enables a digital analog to be created for entire reactor plant equipment and the
operating conditions of the said equipment to be analyzed in normal and emergency operation modes.
For RITM-200 reactor plant, supercomputer twins are developed for the main closed coolant
circulation circuit of the reactor plant and for a steam generator cassette. With the use of the
supercomputer twin of the reactor plant main circulation circuit, a non-isothermal mixing process is
modeled in the reactor plenum, when a part of the steam generator heat exchange surface isolated.
With the use of the steam generator cassette supercomputer twin, steam generator module operation is
modeled under thermal cyclic loads.
Figure 1 illustrates the supercomputer twin of the reactor plant main circulation circuit element which
consists of a 1D active thermal hydraulic part of the steam generator, fuel assemblies and pumps; and
the 3D thermal hydraulic part of reactor mixing plenums [1]. The 1D and 3D parts are integrated
together by a unique, one-of-its-kind 1D and 3D thermal-hydraulic analysis program binding, Figure
2.

2
The Third Conference "Problems of Thermal Physics and Power Engineering" IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1683 (2020) 042014 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1683/4/042014

3D
1D

Figure 1. RITM-200 supercomputer twin with 1D Figure 2. Example of calculation results -

and 3D parts temperature field in the central section
A research based on supercomputer twin was carried out to analyze the possibility to mitigate
limitation of RITM-200 power levels with different number of SG cassettes stopped. For that purpose
non-isothermal mixing process in the core inlet in partial operation modes was analyzed, temperature
field nonuniformity on different power levels was estimated, and finally core thermotechnical
reliability was analyzed.

The analysis showed that time-averaged temperature nonuniformity in the core inlet was up to:
- 6 оС with 3 SG cassettes stopped for 68 % rated power level;
- 4 оС with 2 SG cassettes stopped for 72 % rated power level;
- 3 оС with 1 SG cassette stopped for 100 % rated power level.
By achieving the above mentioned power levels with one, two and three SG cassettes stopped and
with four primary circuit coolant pumps in operation thermotechnical reliability is ensured in all
operation modes and design basis accidents as well as the temperature nonuniformity in reactor cells
does not impact the reactor control system functionality with appropriate optimization of
thermocouple signals processing.
Therefore by using supercomputer twin technology opportunity of the following pattern of power level
limitation mitigation is provided:
- with 1 SG cassette stopped (seven modules) power limitation is not required,operation at rated power
is allowed;
- with 2 SG cassettes stopped (fourteen modules) by 30% - from 60% to 72% rated power;
- with 3 SG cassette stopped (twenty one modules) by 20% - from 60% to 68% rated power.
The supercomputer twin of the main circulation circuit is verified and its operability is confirmed on
the basis of results from experimental studies. The established international approach consists in
performing experiments with relatively small scale test models of reactor plants and in validating a
possibility of scaling up (extrapolating) the obtained verification results to the reactor plant conditions.
The test model developed for the verification is similar to test facilities widely cited in the literature, in
particular, ROCOM (Rossendorf Coolant Mixing) and Fortum PTS, which are designed to study flow

3
The Third Conference "Problems of Thermal Physics and Power Engineering" IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1683 (2020) 042014 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1683/4/042014

mixing processes in PWR plants [2]. The facilities are made to a 1:5 scale and a 1:2.56 scale,
respectively. JSC “Afrikantov OKBM” solves the verification problem in two test facilities, in two
stages.
At the first stage, tests are performed on a small-scale integral reactor plenum model. The model is in
the fluid-dynamics laboratory at JSC “Afrikantov OKBM” [3]. The model is used to do the studies in a
Reynolds number range of up to Re≈4×104.
The second stage is performed on a test model different in the layout of the coolant inlet nozzles,
which are put horizontally the same as in the RITM-200 reactor plant. Photographs of the test models
at JSC “Afrikantov OKBM” and at NNSTU n.a. Alekseev are shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4. In the
tests, non-symmetric operation modes are studied that simulate isolation of a number of steam
generator cassettes or modules. For this, a flow is injected into the test model via one of the nozzles.
The flow differs from the main flow in its temperature or in an excess concentration of a diluted
admixture. A thermal imager, thermocouples and conductance measuring rod sensors are used to study
mixing processes in the model downcomer region and at the inlet to the reactor core channel
simulators.

Figure 3. Photograph of Test model of the reactor Figure 4. Photograph of Test model of the
plenum at JSC “Afrikantov OKBM” reactor plenum at NNSTU n.a. Alekseev

As an example, Figure 5 and Figure 6 show calculated and experimental results for the temperature
field in the downcomer region and at the inlet to the core channel simulators in the RITM-200 reactor
plenum model. One can see from the Figures that, the flow is twisted in the calculation, which is
explained by the geometry of the inlet nozzles, and the flow twisting is verified experimentally, which
confirms that the calculations are correct.

4
The Third Conference "Problems of Thermal Physics and Power Engineering" IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1683 (2020) 042014 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1683/4/042014

Figure 5 The admixture concentration Figure 6 The admixture concentration

field in the downcomer region of the field in the downcomer region of the
RITM-200 reactor plenum model in RITM-200 reactor plenum model in
simulation in cross sections simulation in the central section

The supercomputer twin of the steam generator cassette is used to study the effect the thermal cyclic
loads, resulting from coolant temperature pulsations, produce on the lifetime characteristics of the
steam generator module cassette. The said supercomputer twin is based upon the use of the set of
coupled “Fluid Dynamics-Temperature State-SSS-Damage” calculations. Figure 7 shows an
instantaneous temperature field on the steam generator module model surface.

Figure 7. Instantaneous temperature field of the steam generator module metal at a random time
moment
With the use of the temperature state results, a stress-strained state is modeled and steam generator
cassette lifetime characteristics are evaluated using a multicycle fatigue mechanism. The evaluation
results have shown that the maximum amplitude of the acting stresses is less than the allowable
amplitude defined for the material of the steam generator module structural elements.
To verify and confirm the operability of the steam generator cassette supercomputer twin,
experimental studies are performed for the fatigue strength of the structural materials in the reactor
plant equipment under the effect of stochastic thermal cyclic loads produced by non-isothermal flow
mixing. The experiments are performed on a specially designed model and in a test facility at NNSTU
n.a. Alekseev (Figure 8).

5
The Third Conference "Problems of Thermal Physics and Power Engineering" IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1683 (2020) 042014 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1683/4/042014

Figure 8. A test facility section at NNSTU n.a. Alekseev with five test models
The accomplished numerical modeling of the test and the comparative analysis have shown a good
match between the calculated and experimental data, which verifies the operability of the steam
generator cassette supercomputer twin.

3. Conclusion
As a result of the accomplished R&D work based upon the innovative supercomputer twin technology
and a supercomputer, a possibility has been validated of easing up the power level limitations for the
case with a part of steam generator heat exchange surface isolated, and the possibility of extending the
assigned lifetime of a steam generator cassette was analyzed. A unique result has been achieved that
allows the reactor plant repair costs, associated with a steam generator cassette replacement, to be
considerably reduced and a long downtime for a nuclear-powered icebreaker to be avoided.

References

[1] Vasiliev A, Sukhanovskii A, Frick P, Budnikov A, Fomichev V, Bolshukhin M 2016 High

Rayleigh number convection in a cubic cell with adiabatic sidewalls International J. of
Heat and Mass Transfer 56-62.
[2] Budnikov A V, Shmelev E I, Kulikov D A, Loginov A V, Dmitriev S M, Pribaturin N A,
Lobanov P D, Suvorov A S, Stulenkov A V 2019 Hydrodynamic and vibrational
characteristics estimation for structure flux-induced excitation numerical analyses validation
Pribory I metody ismereniy 10 223-32
[3] Hohne T, Kilem S 2003 Coolant mixing studies of natural circulationflows at the rocom test
facility using ANSYS CFX Nuclear Technology 141 88-106.