UN0804 - Nuclear Reactor Heat Transport System Design
(2010 version)
(This course is based on McMaster's EP716)

Announcements

• Offered 2010.05.08 - 2010.06.27
• Location: Lecture Theatre, Durham College - Whitby Campus, 1610 Champlain Avenue, Whitby. See Campus Maps.
• Distance Education - If you will be participating in the course using distance education please inform the instructor by email prior to the course commencing. Access distance ed courses using Elluminate at, https://maclive.mcmaster.ca/
• It is highly recommended that you review the Physics refresher / prerequisite material for this course and the general Math refresher / prerequisite to ensure you are ready for UN0804. See the Refresher / Prerequisite Material page for further information.
• Note the date change below.

Course Description:

The thermal-hydraulic design part of the course includes the primary heat transport system design of nuclear reactors, emphasizing reactor main components and characteristics. Review of design methods and system equations based on conservation of heat, momentum and mass, including adequate empirical design correlations, and critical heat flux and pressure drop calculation methods. Topics include: description of reactor components and systems, design methodology, plant performance, safety design margins, etc. The thermal-hydraulics analysis part of the course includes two-fluid two-phase modeling of thermalhydraulics phenomena in reactor heat transport system including modeling and simulation of postulated accidents. Topics include: two-fluid conservation equations and constitutive correlations, nodalization schemes and numerical methods applied in thermalhydraulic network simulation, equation of state and the rate method, computer code development, CATHENA computer code specific theory, numerical algorithm, and flow regime modeling

Prerequisite: Registration in the UNENE Joint M. Eng. Program
Instructor: - Nik Popov, course leader , AECL Sheridan Park, Adjunct Professor, McMaster University, 905-823-9060, ext. 3623

Preparing for the course:

• If you were a regular senior undergraduate or graduate student in Engineering at McMaster, then no special preparation would be necessary for taking this course. Any accredited undergraduate engineering program contains sufficient mathematics and physics for this course. The content needed is all in the course notes. It should not be necessary to look elsewhere for special background information. So relax on that point.
• However, there is a fair bit of mathematics (first and second order ordinary and partial differential equations) and some simple numerical methods to contend with. If it has been a while since you have been in university and your mathematics has become a bit foggy, then you might want to first look over the course notes on this site to get a feel for what deficiencies you might have and then to dig out your old university texts to brush up. But don't panic, exotic mathematical manipulations and solutions are not expected; rather, the differential equations are used to express heat and mass flow balances and provide simple, approximate solutions.
• Please do read ahead using the course notes supplied below. The compressed format does not give much time to think during the sessions but you can compensate somewhat by reading ahead.
• You will need to print off the notes given below so you can follow along in the lectures.

Course Administration

• Schedule - 9:00 am start
  • May 8/9
  • May 22/23
  • June 12/13 19/20 ***[Note change]***
  • June 26/27

Course Notes:

• 1. Course introduction (2008 version)
  • Introduction - presentation (pdf 82 kb)
• Introduction - text (pdf 48kb)
• 2. Design Requirements
  • Introduction to TH Design - presentation (pdf 163kb)
  • Design Requirements - presentation (pdf 54kb)
  • Design Requirements and Engineering Considerations - text (pdf 197kb)
  • addendum Popov - chap2 (pdf 157kb)
• 3. Power Reactor Types and Designs
  • Power Reactor Types - presentation (pdf 2.1Mb)
  • ACR - C6 Comparison - presentation (pdf 331kb)
  • ACR 1000 vs. ACR 700 - presentation (pdf 1.6Mb)
  • Reactor Types - text (pdf 211kb)
  • Reactor Types - addendum 1 (pdf 453kb)
  • Reactor Types - addendum 2 (pdf 1.33Mb)
• 4. Process Design Evolution
  • Design Evolution - presentation (pdf 522kb)
  • Process Design Evolution - text (pdf 234kb)
• 5. Heat Transport System Thermalhydraulics
  • HTS Thermalhydraulics - presentation (pdf 556kb)
  • HTS Thermalhydraulics - text (pdf 280b)
  • HTS Thermalhydraulics - addendum (pdf 702kb)
• 6. Flow Instabilities
  • Flow Instabilities - presentation (pdf 60kb)
  • ICONE-8 - Two-Phase Flow in Parallel Channels (pdf 1.0Mb)
  • BWR - text (pdf 163kb) [password protected]
  • Delhaye - text (pdf 341kb) [password protected]
  • MIT - text (pdf 110kb) [password protected]
• 7. Assignments
  • Overview - presentation (pdf 27kb)
• 8. Fuel-coolant heat transfer
  • Fuel - Coolant Heat Transfer - presentation (pdf 474kb)
  • Temp Gradient Radial pie chart (pdf 10kb)
  • Fuel - Coolant Heat Transfer - text (pdf 196kb)
  • Fuel - Coolant Heat Transfer - addendum (pdf 264kb) [password protected]
  • Heat Conduction- text (pdf 306kb) [password protected]
• 9. Reactor Thermodynamics
  • Thermodynamics - presentation (pdf 1.23Mb)
  • Thermodynamics - text (pdf 241kb)
  • Thermal Efficiency - presentation (pdf 204)
  • Thermal Efficiency- text (pdf 500kb) [password protected]
  • Entropy - presentation (pdf 28kb)
• 10. Two-Phase Flow Fundamentals and impact on the design process
  • Two-Phase Flow - presentation (pdf 1.23Mb)
  • Two-Phase Flow Patterns - presentation (pdf 427kb)
  • CNSC - Two-Phase Flows - text (pdf 469kb) [password protected]
• 11. Critical Heat Flux
  • Critical Heat Flux for CANDU Applications - presentation (pdf 1.14Mb)
  • IAEA - CHF- text (pdf 2.1Mb)
  • CHF - sensitivities.pdf - text (pdf 113kb) [password protected]
• 12. Post Dryout Heat Transfer
  • Post Dryout - presentation (pdf 3.73Mb)
  • IAEA Post Dryout- text (pdf 228 kb)
• 13. Pressure Drop
  • Pressure Drop - presentation (pdf 2.5Mb)
  • Pressure Drop - presentation (pdf 94kb)
  • IAEA - Pressure Drop - text (pdf 3.2Mb)
  • Pressure Drop- text (pdf 198kb) [password protected]

Course Assignments

• to come

Learning Resources

• Teaching matters - helpful general information on teaching and learning for the student and the educator
• Looking for FORTRAN information? See the Downloads page for engineering software and compilers, etc.
• Computing tools - some suggestions.
• Suggestions welcome.