A FUEL CHANNEL DESIGN FOR CANDU-SCWR

摘要

The CANDU~®-Supercritical Water Reactor (CANDU-SCWR) is one of the six reactor concepts being considered by the Generation-IV International Forum (GIF) for international collaborative R&D. With SCW coolant, the thermodynamic efficiency is increased to over 40%.rnThe CANDU-SCWR is moderated using heavy water, and it has fuel bundles residing inside horizontal pressure tubes, similar to the current CANDU design. The coolant, however, is light water at 25 MPa, with an inlet temperature of 350℃ and an outlet temperature of 625℃. Because of the high temperature and high pressure of the coolant, the standard CANDU pressure tube design cannot be used. This paper presents one of the insulated pressure tube designs being considered for the CANDU-SCWR fuel channels.rnUnlike current CANDU reactors, the proposed CANDU-SCWR fuel channel does not use calandria tubes to separate the pressure tubes from the moderator. Each pressure tube is in direct contact with the moderator, which operates at an average temperature of about 80℃. The pressure tube is thermally insulated from the hot coolant by a porous ceramic insulator. A perforated metal liner protects the insulator from being damaged by the fuel bundles and erosion by the coolant. The coolant pressure is transmitted through the perforated metal liner and insulator and applied directly to the relatively cold pressure tube.