Safety evaluation of LWR with ATF

The use of UO2/Zircaloy (Zr) fuel system has been used widely in commercial nuclear power plants due to several beneficial properties such as high melting point, thermal stability, chemical stability, and low swelling under irradiation. After the accident of Fukushima Daichii, it is widely known that in a severe accident, the current UO2/Zr fuel system will fail, which may damage the plant structure further. It is thus necessary to develop a fuel system which has enhanced resistance to severe accident conditions, especially in an exothermic cladding oxidation.

Accident tolerant fuel (ATF) is then proposed as one of the alternative fuel technology options that must be compatible with existing fuel and reactor systems, more resistant to fuel failure and hydrogen production. Examples of materials proposed for ATF are uranium silicide, uranium nitrides, and fully-ceramic microencapsulated fuel, while for cladding some materials such as FeCrAl alloy, SiC as well as coating materials such as Cr, TiAlN, Ti2AlC have been proposed.

Development of ATF from fuel design and manufacturing point of view has been in the third phase based on the technology readiness level (TRL) assessment, which reaches the verification of new fuel concept, including fabrication and sample irradiation test. In order to use ATF in a commercially operated LWR to replace the monolithic UO2 fuel with Zircaloy cladding, the ATF should have reached the ninth phase of the TRL assessment. Henceforth, many researches and development should be performed before the ATF technology becomes mature for commercial operation.

From nuclear reactor safety point of view, the TRL phase 3 poses many challenges to answer before the ATF is proven safe for commercial operation at normal condition, transient, DBA and beyond DBA (BDBA). Safety analysis should be performed to understand the influence of using ATF to the performance of reactor at accident situation.

List of relevant theses:

  1. Modeling and Analysis on the Influence Leak Area in Main Steam Line Break Accident to Thermal-hydraulics Parameters of a Pressurized Water Reactor using RELAP5-3D, Mhd. Yusuf Hanafiah, 2019.
  2. Small Break Loss-of-Coolant Accident Analysis for a 3-Loop PWR with Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) using RELAP5, Fathurrahman Setiawan, 2018.
  3. Thermalhydraulic Analysis Of Silicon Carbide And Zirconium Alloy As Cladding Material For Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) During Large Break Loss Of Coolant Accident (LB-LOCA) In Relap5-3D,  Julisa Bana Abraham, 2017.

Tawaran Tugas Akhir

  • Pemodelan termal hidraulika dan simulasi limiting events (3 judul) :
      • Small break LOCA
      • Main steam line break
      • Turbine trip without bypass
  • Pemodelan dan kopling neutronika (1 judul)
  • Penentuan uncertainty band menggunakan metode Wilks (1 judul)