The Need for Integrated Cybersecurity and Safety Training

Companies involved in the nuclear energy domain, like component and platform manufacturers, system integrators and utilities, have well established yearly trainings on Nuclear Safety Culture. These trainings are typically covered as part of the annual quality assurance-related refresher trainings, introductory courses for new employees, or indoctrinations of temporary staff. Gradually, security awareness trainings are also addressed on a regular basis, typically with a focus on IT, the daily office work, test bay or construction site work environment, and some data protection and privacy-related topics. Due to emerging national nuclear regulation, steadily but surely, specialized cybersecurity trainings are foreseen for integrators and utilities. Beyond these safety, physical security and cybersecurity specific trainings, there is a need to address the joint part of these disciplines, starting from the planning phase of a new Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). The engineers working on safety, physical protection and cybersecurity, must be aware of these interrelations to jointly elaborate a robust I&C architecture (defense-in-depth, design basis events, functional categorization and systems classification) and a resilient security architecture (security by design, security grading, zone model or infrastructure domain, security conduits, forensic readiness, Security Information and Event Management). This paper provides more in-depth justification of when and where additional training is needed, due to the ubiquitous deployment of digital technology in new NPPs. Additionally, for existing NPPs, the benefits of conveying knowledge by training on specific interfaces between the involved disciplines, will be discussed. Furthermore, the paper will address the need of focused training of management stakeholders, as eventually, they must agree on the residual risk. The decision-makers are in charge of facilitating the inter-disciplinary cooperation in parallel to the allocation of resources, e.g. on security certifications of products, extended modeling-based safety and security analyses and security testing coverage.

CFD Analysis of the Primary Side in a Helical-Coil Once-Through Steam Generator

The helical-coil once-through steam generator (OTSG) is usually used in the nuclear power plant when the compactness of equipment was taken into consideration. The investigation of flow parameters in the primary side is valuable for the optimization of the OTSG. The purpose of this research is to obtain a further understanding of fluid behaviors in the primary side of the OTSG to achieve a more rational design. Using ANSYS ICEM and ANSYS FLUENT, a three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was created and analyzed. Through a series of cases, the velocity profiles and pressure drop through the primary side of the helical-coil OTSG have been calculated, and the influences of different structure designs on the coolant flow parameters have also been tested. Ultimately some pertinent suggestions for improvements were proposed, and insight is obtained into the importance of various modeling considerations in such a model with a complicated structure and large-scale grids.

Review of the Content Analysis of Physics School Books Coming From Different European Countries on Radioactivity and Nuclear Energy

The EAGLE project was a Euratom FP7 which helped to identify and disseminate good practices in information and communication processes related to ionizing radiation. For this purpose, the consortium reviewed national and international data, tools and methods as well as institutional work in order to identify education, information and communication needs. Generally in high school the first concepts on radioactivity and ionizing radiation (IR) are introduced mainly in the subjects of physics or physical chemistry. There are a number of concepts in relation with IR and nuclear topics, and different ways to teach them: theoretical, mathematical, historical or practical. The question also rose, to what extend the various topics related to ionizing radiation (health, environment, history) are dealt with. As already mentioned, all these questions let to the idea to compare the content dealing with radioactivity and nuclear topics in different physics school books and more specifically schoolbooks for high school students (in the age 17 to 18). The method was as follows: - For the review the different partners of EAGLE have sent the schoolbooks used for the target group, or scanned documents. - Spanish schoolbooks and English schoolbooks were purchased to extend the review to other EU countries. - IRSN works in partnership with a high school based in the French town Vichy. - Each book was analyzed in detail to list with precision the content. A matrix helped to compare them. The paper presents the comparison of the contents of these books and their analysis. Some recommendations coming from the Eagle project will be discussed.

Energy Needs and Potential Nuclear Power Development in China

The harmonious development of economic, energy and environment is an important premise to realize the objective of China’s modernization. Currently, different parts of China have different main energy source, while nuclear power development has many opportunities and challenges. This paper considers the current trends of energy needs in China, and discusses the different influencing factors of energy needs throughout China. In addition, this paper will focus on the potential nuclear power development in China, which mainly focuses on policy, technology, nuclear security and social attitude. Then it will focus on the application in Shenzhen (Daya Bay). Based on previous analysis, technical/engineering feasibility and site feasibility are considered in this part. Finally, a number of recommendations for nuclear development management in China will be given. These recommendations will help the public to have a basic understanding of nuclear power management, and to improve the social attitude of China’s nuclear energy development. In all, this paper puts forward the management methodology of nuclear power industry, which has positive significance for the field of nuclear power education. Meanwhile, the paper will play a positive role on popularize the knowledge of nuclear power to the public.

Coupled Analysis of Thermal Hydraulics and Neutronics for a Molten Salt Reactor

As one of the six selected optional innovative nuclear reactor in the generation IV International Forum (GIF), the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) adopts liquid salt as nuclear fuel and coolant, which makes the characteristics of thermal hydraulics and neutronics strongly intertwined. Coupling analysis of neutronics and thermal hydraulics has received considerable attention in recent years. In this paper, a new coupling method is introduced based on the Finite Volume Method (FVM), which is widely used in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology. Neutron diffusion equations and delayed neutron precursors balance equations are discretized and solved by the commercial CFD package FLUENT, along with continuity, momentum and energy equations simultaneously. A Temporal And Spatial Neutronics Analysis Model (TASNAM) is developed using the User Defined Functions (UDF) and User Defined Scalar (UDS) in FLUENT. A neutronics benchmark is adopted to demonstrate the solution capability for neutronics problems using the method above. Furthermore, a steady state coupled analysis of neutronics and thermal hydraulics for the Molten Salt Advanced Reactor Transmuter (MOSART) is performed. Two groups of neutrons and six groups of delayed neutron precursors are adopted. Distributions of the liquid salt velocity, temperature, neutron flux and delayed neutron precursors in the core are obtained and analyzed. This work can provide some valuable information for the design and research of MSRs.

The Linear System Solver of Programs Named CORTH and KYLIN2

Sub-channel thermal-hydraulics program named CORTH and assembly lattice calculation program named KYLIN2 have been developed in Nuclear Power Institute of China (NPIC). For the sake of promoting the computing efficiency of these programs and achieving the better description on fined parameters of reactor, the programs’ structure and details are interpreted. Then the characteristics of linear systems of these programs are analyzed. Based on the Generalized Minimal Residual (GMRES) method, different parallel schemes and implementations are considered. The experimental results show that calculation efficiencies of them are improved greatly compared with the serial situation.

Improving Public Acceptance to Nuclear Power: Policy, Practice and Experience With Public Communication

With the development of public awareness on environmental protection, especially after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the opposition to nuclear power due to NIMBY (not in my back yard) effect begins to hinder the rapid development of Chinese nuclear industry. For example, in recent years several large-scale mass incidents with appealing to stop the siting and construction of nuclear facilities in China have put related projects (including nuclear power plant and nuclear fuel cycle facility) into termination, resulting in certain financial loss and unnecessary social unstabilization, thus causing more and more concern from administrative authority, research institution and nuclear industry. To strengthen public acceptance on nuclear power, related enterprises such as CGN and CNNC have made great efforts in information disclosure to eliminate mysterious feelings towards nuclear power and expect to build new impression as clean energy. Domestic institutions and universities carry out plenty of work on methods to help public correctly perceive nuclear risk and present strategies for effective public communication. Administrative authority also issued detailed guidance on public communication required to be fulfilled during plant’s siting phase, which provided explicit provisions on the responsibility and job content of different entities. Here we will take one public communication practice of one nuclear power project located in south Zhejiang region as an example. In this scenario, we face more difficulty than other projects, such as doubt from local government, complexity of public types, and large amount of stakeholders. In this paper, we will make summary on endeavors to improve public acceptance, such as large amount of NPP visits, comprehensive scientific popularization, direct communication with stakeholders and integration development between local society and nuclear industry. And we will discuss the feasibility of innovative practice, combining several similar tasks needed in different subjects, such as environmental impact assessment and social stabilization assessment, to fulfill at once. To achieve this goal, we design specific questionnaire and use it to survey the opinion of more than 800 people in the fairly large region across different provinces, covering 30km radius area of site, which gains satisfactory results. By comparing outcomes of opinion surveys carried out before and after the practice, we will put forward to the considerable effect of public communication in improving public acceptance to nuclear power, and analysis the pros and cons of this example. Moreover, we also expect the good experience in practice can be promoted to overall processes of nuclear power plant, including siting, construction, commission and life extension, helping nuclear power gain more public acceptance.

Numerical Study on Momentum Transfer Between Droplets and Carrier-Phase in Wave-Type Plate Separators

The steam flow is simulated by FLUENT. The Lagrange-Euler method is used to simulate the droplet-laden flow in wave-type separators. Two-way coupling method is used to study the influence of the momentum transfer between droplets and carrier-phase in wave-type plate separators. A group of the trajectories of droplets with different diameters are performed in wave-type plate separator flow field. The result shows that the momentum transfer has tiny impact on the behaviors of droplets in a low velocity flow. However, the momentum transfer affects the behaviors of droplets more significantly with rising flow velocity. The one-way coupling method overestimates the diffusion of droplets. In addition, the momentum transfer affects the total pressure loss more significantly with rising volume fraction. The conclusion verifies the importance of the momentum transfer in droplet-laden flows, which could be used to simulate the behavior of droplets moving in a separator.

Numerical Prediction of Poly-Dispersed Condensation Using Quadrature Method of Moments and Multi-Fluid Model

Accurate prediction of condensation plays an important role in the development of high efficiency turbo-machines working on condensable fluid. Therefore it demands modeling of poly-disperse characteristic of number distribution function while modeling condensation. Two such kind of models are considered in this work and they are namely, quadrature method of moments (QMOM) and multi-fluid method (MFM) models. The vital difference between these two models lies in the method of discretisation of the droplet size distribution. Further, their numerical aspects like ease of implementation in general purpose computational fluid dynamics solvers, accuracy and associated computational cost are discussed. In order to obtain accurate thermodynamic properties, the real gas formulations defined in IAPWS-IF97 are used. These algorithms are applied to the compressible Navier-Stokes solver of Fluidyn MP and tests are carried on Laval nozzle and compared with the experimental measurements.

Comparison of Test and Analytical Results on CAP1400 Reactor Flow Distributor Designs

The CAP1400 reactor internal is going to use a new component termed the “Even Flow Distributor (EFD)”, instead of the existing flow skirt (FS) design, to help distribute the incoming flow more evenly to the fuel assemblies. To verify the effect of the EFD, a scale model of the reactor and internals was built and hydraulic tests of both the EFD and the FS configurations were conducted. In addition, numerical simulations of the flow fields, using CFD, of both designs were also carried out. From the scale model test results, the overall flow distribution of EFD is better than that of the FS. The core inlet flow distribution taken from the CFD results is slightly better than that from the hydraulic test. The differences between CFD result and test results are less than 3 percent for the most of fuel assemblies, and about 5 percent for a few assemblies. Based on this study, it is concluded that the EFD is a very effective means of controlling core inlet flow distribution in a CAP1400 reactor.