Safety of Nuclear Powerplants (Centre d'étude nucléaire-Mol)

Note from June 29, 2020
Although we do not yet know how long the social distancing related to the Covid-19 pandemic will last, and regardless of the changes that had to be made in the evaluation of the June 2020 session in relation to what is provided for in this learning unit description, new learnig unit evaluation methods may still be adopted by the teachers; details of these methods have been - or will be - communicated to the students by the teachers, as soon as possible.

5 credits

Language

English

Prerequisites

Courses in the following field
· Nuclear reactor theory
· Nuclear thermal hydraulics

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	To introduce the students to methods and practices supporting the defense-in-depth approach for nuclear power plants. More specifically: To present elements of nuclear safety philosophy. To understand how to insure the link between nuclear safety and reactor operation. To master all the contributors to the core reactivity balance and power distribution in normal operation. To understand specific measurement and control issues in nuclear reactors. To introduce the basic notions and techniques of system reliability engineering. To understand the concepts of safety analyses (both deterministic and probabilistic), and the fundamentals of probabilistic safety analysis (PSA). To present some PSA-based applications.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Content

Operation & Control (28h)

Cycle specific safety evaluation methodology.
Basic principles of the in-core fuel management based on the linear reactivity model.
Reactivity coefficients (moderator, Doppler), neutron poisons (xenon, samarium, '), their variation with burnup and core state parameters and their impact on core power distribution
Reactivity control means (boron, control rods, burnable poisons) and their sensitivity to the core burnup and in-core fuel management parameters.
Operating modes, operating limits and protection diagram.
Fuel rod design and thermal-mechanical behavior in normal operation and accidental conditions.
Thermal design procedures and elaboration of the core thermal limits and core protections.
Core control, surveillance and protection systems

Optional visits and laboratory session:

Visit of a Nuclear Power Plant.
Two day session of compact and full scope Nuclear Power Plant simulator.

Seminars: Overview of design basis accidents and severe accidents; Discussion of selected past nuclear (severe) accidents (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima-Daiichi...)
Reliability & Safety (14h theory + 6h exercises)

Introduction to nuclear safety and defence in depth
concept of risk, individual and societal risk criteria, release limits, core damage frequency limit, safety goals at function or system level
deterministic vs. probabilistic safety analyses;
probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) methodology and PSA levels
Component reliability
Fault tree and event tree analysis
Markov analysis
Common cause failure analysis
Elements of human reliability analysis
Elements of the level 2 and level 3 PSA methodology
Limits of the classical PSA methodology
PSA-based applications

Evaluation methods

Operation & Control
First and second session: Individual oral exam, closed book, written preparation
Reliability & Safety
First and second session: An oral examination (closed book) with one question on the concepts and one exercise

Other information

Course location: SCK-Cen (Mol)
Prof. Greet Janssens-Maenhout -Universiteit Gent
NN - Universiteit Gent
Prof. Pierre- Etienne Labeau -Université Libre de Bruxelles

Online resources

https://www.sckcen.be/fbnen

Faculty or entity

EPL