Advanced operational strategy for the IRIS reactor: Load follow through mechanical shim (MSHIM)

The renaissance of nuclear power brings more attention to advanced reactor designs and their improved performance and flexibility, including their enhanced load follow capability. Reactor control strategy used to perform transients including power changes has impact on the overall control system design. In particular, as the power change is performed within a load follow maneuver, several modifications occur in the core from a neutronic view point: the fuel and moderator temperature change, the xenon concentration and distribution are modified, the power distribution skewed axially, etc. These changes need to be adequately counterbalanced to keep both the core critical and the power distribution acceptable. The traditional approach in PWRs is to compensate for the reactivity change due to the power variation by adjusting the soluble boron concentration and moving a limited number of control rod banks. However, advanced reactors may adopt a different strategy for a variety of reasons. For example, water-cooled reactors that do not use soluble boron in coolant obviously cannot use its adjustment for this purpose. Moreover, Integral Primary System Reactors (IPSRs) using soluble boron. due to their integral design, have a large inventory of primary coolant. Therefore dilution/boration strategy, while in principle an option, becomes expensive for short time changes and leads to large volume of liquid effluent, in particular toward the end of cycle. Therefore, a capability to perform load follow without changing soluble boron concentration is very desirable for a range of reactor designs. International Reactor Innovative and Secure (IRIS) is an advanced medium-size IPSR that has been selected as the reference reactor for the purpose of this study. A capability to perform load follow maneuvers without changing soluble boron concentration has been examined and demonstrated through implementation of the Westinghouse Mechanical Shim (MSHIM) control strategy. A control bank design suited for MSHIM operation has been devised. Nine load follow scenarios covering a wide range of possible operating requirements, including Westinghouse design basis plus others proposed by EPRI for Advanced LWRs, have been successfully performed through the control rod banks movement only, without soluble boron adjustment, and maintaining power peaking factors within the acceptable range. Thus, IRIS provides improved operation by enabling load follow through MSHIM. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.