Utilization of Nuclear Power
Plant Simulators
Dr. Salih Alkhafaji
IAEA May, 2014
Proper Talk Title
Research Reactor Simulator
Idea for a Project
Dr. Salih Alkhafaji
IAEA May, 19, 2014
Introduction
• Jordan one of the countries that have recently
decided to embark on nuclear power programs.
• Increasing changes in economic, water and
energy demand conditions have encouraged the
idea of including nuclear power in the energy
mix.
• The choice for new nuclear power plant
construction will be from the Generation III-plus.
The two nominated candidates are Areva EPR,
and Russian VVER1000.
Nuclear Power Plant
• Russian VVER 1000 has been selected as the preferred bidder to
supply Jordan with its first nuclear power plant.
• The initial plant will be of the two-unit reactors, the first one is
expected to start operating in 2023. It is to be built in Jordan's Amra
region.
• JAEC selected the VVER-1000 because its design met the needs and
requirements of the Kingdom in terms of safety and competitiveness
(Financing, spent fuel, risk sharing, PPA…)
• Jordan intends to start building a 1000 MWe reactor in 2017 with a
view to operation by 2023, followed by a second unit coming on
line around 2025.
• In addition to providing electricity, the plant will also be used for
desalinating water.
Nuclear Engineering Education
• Nuclear Engineering Department at JUST was
founded in early 2007.
• The Department offers a B.Sc. in Nuclear
Engineering. About 20 students are enrolled in
the nuclear engineering program every year.
• The Department is currently working on the
establishment of good equipped laboratories
that support its curriculum and enable it to
provide good quality education.
JSA
• The JSA is a subcritical assembly that is inherently of zero
power relative to research reactors. Its research capability
utilization makes it of quality educational in nature.
• The JSA has been installed at JUST and its commissioned in
March 2013. Licensing was finished recently, which should
allow its utilization in student training in the near future.
• JSA is an educational tool for teaching, training and
experimental research of nuclear engineering students and
trainees, and they can do the following experiments:
• Approach to criticality experiment.
• Flux distribution measurement and absolute flux measurement.
• Some kinetics experiments.
• void effect.
JRTR
• Similar to what’s implemented at research reactors located on
campuses of universities, the students at JUST will be able to
study the practical implementation of reactor physics and
safety concepts on the JRTR.
• The students will be able to observe the physical phenomena
and operational procedures of a fully functional 5 MWt
nuclear reactor which will be commissioned in Mid 2016.
• the JRTR will be a multipurpose facility that is open to all
students and scientists. Its training and research mission
could also cover disciplines in RI, radiography, NAA, NTD
all to be used in medicine, industry, agriculture, … etc.
JRTR
• JRTR is a national and regional facility that is open to students and
users from regional universities, research institutes as well as
medical, industrial and Forensics.
• As for areas related to nuclear power applications, the approach for
personnel training using the JRTR will be determined by all the
stake holders including JAEC, JNRC and JUST.
• The nuclear engineers graduated from JUST are the principal
candidates to participate in the engineering and operations of the
JRTR and they are currently being trained for that.
• In general reactor operators can have varying technical background
and educational levels. Therefore, various practices will be
examined and the best approach for Jordan will be determined. This
will all be done according to the capacity building advancement of
the programme.
Jordan Future Need of PC Simulator
• A low cost PC-based hand’s on educational tool that is relatively easy to
learn and use.
• Training the first-generation technical staff - complementing classroom
lectures in reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant technology.
• Teaching aid for demonstrating concepts of nuclear science and
engineering.
• Understanding into basic Reactivity Control Features, Safety Systems,
and Operational Characteristics.
• Ability to explore propagation and various responses and management
to Transients and Accidents.
• Evaluation between the various designs.
• Demonstration to non-technical managers and politicians – Graphic
animation that makes it easy for the layman to understand the technical
differences between designs.
PC-Simulators for RR
• The PC-simulators are rarely used for research reactors. It
will be a powerful tool complementing classroom lectures.
• It can be used for education of reactor principles on the
concept of delayed neutron effect, multiplication factor,
criticality, control by rods and boron shim, feedback on
fuel (Doppler) and moderator temperatures, core thermal
hydraulic parameters and margins, xenon and samarium
poisoning…etc.
• Recently we applied Nodal diffusion methods for research
reactors calculations typically MTR fuel type reactor.
• The nodal code was applied to research reactor
calculations like criticality, flux distribution, and power
distribution.
PC-Simulators for RR
• It was used for burnup estimation in conjunction with TRITIONNEWT system.
• A transient and steady-state thermal hydraulic code has been
developed for the MTR research reactor.
• The thermal hydraulic code is based on solving the one dimensional
transport equations.
• The code now is under development and we will make coupling
between thermal hydraulics so we can perform transient calculations
for a research reactor.
• A burnup estimation equation will be implemented in the code, so a
full set of RR calculations can be performed using this code.
• A windows interface program will be developed in the future to be
used as PC-simulator to perform reactor calculations.
• The students and trainees will be able to use the reactor simulator to
study and analyze the core so they will have a good understanding of
reactor operation and applications.
Schematic Diagram of the RR-Simulator
The team to develop the RR simulator will
include as an initial start Four Nuclear Engineers
just finished their MSc at UST of Korea/KAERI
namely
Eng. Mustafa Jaradat
Eng. Omar Alyahia
Eng. Loai Alawneh
Eng. Mohammad Batae
Conclusions
• PC simulators TILL NOW are not used in
teaching and training nuclear engineers in Jordan.
• Jordan needs the support of the IAEA for
development of PC simulator for the purpose of
better understanding and education of Jordanian
engineers.
• More efforts will be dedicated for the utilization
of available IAEA capabilities of PC simulators
for the development of RR simulator as an
educational line besides those for NPP.
References
• IAEA Collection of PC-Based Simulators for
Education, IAEA website.
• PC-based NPP Simulators for Education, Chad
Painter, Department of Nuclear Energy.
• Micro-Simulation Technology, MST website.
Thank You