NE-170A Nuclear Design (3 Units)
Spring 2006

Professor Donald Olander

• Office Hours
• MW 11 – 12:30, 4101 Etcheverry

GSI Kelly Jordan

• kjordan@nuc.berkeley.edu

Prerequisite knowledge and/or skills

NE 170 is a "capstone" design course requiring students to integrate the knowledge obtained in their undergraduate courses into a comprehensive design experience. This course is best taken after completing the remaining undergraduate Nuclear Engineering requirements.

Reading/reference materials

• Undergraduate textbooks from other NE courses (120, 150, 161)
• Project documentation available from the instructor
• Computer code documentation
• Power-Point Presentations and Word documents:
  • Lecture #1:Introduction to the course
  • Lecture #2:Design methodology
  • Lecture #3:Thermal-hydraulic constraints
  • Lecture #4: Design techniques
  • Cercer Fuels
  • FUEL PERFORMANCE #5 fuel temp in oxide
  • FUEL PERFORMANCE #6 - hydride fuel - relocation
  • FUEL PERFORMANCE #7 - Cladding deformation
  • FUEL PERFORMANCE #8 - fission-gas release
  • FUEL PERFORMANCE #9 -waterside corrosion
  • Memo#1 - Project design conditions
  • Memo 2 Hench-Gillis correlation
  • Memo 3 FRAPCON PCMI model
  • Memo 4 Final design conditions
  • Memo 5 Post-PCMI deformation of cladding
  • Project Design Conditions
  • Schedule: Spring 2006
  • Speakers for Final Presentation to the Department

Course objectives and outcomes

NE 170 is markedly different from other undergraduate courses. Based on some broad design parameters of a system, the instructor guides the students through a comprehensive design experience. Students take charge of their own learning, using the instructor as a consultant and resource to point them in the right direction when needed. The objective is to create an environment in which students can both meet design requirements of a realistic project and gain confidence in their abilities to solve large, complex, problems.

Milestones of the design project

1. Prepare a written preliminary design for the project.

• Establish a design goal.

• Identify design parameters

2. Utilize analytical theory and models to scope the system performance.

3. Orally present the preliminary design to the class

4. Modify the preliminary design based on the outcome of the model analysis and feedback from the oral presentation

5. Conduct a detailed analysis of the system with computer codes used in industry

• FRAPCON for fuel element performance (temperature distribution in fuel; fuel swelling, cladding strain, fission-gas release)

• VIPRE for thermal-hydraulic analysis (coolant temperature rise, pressure drop over core, rod vibration due to turbulence, wear of cladding due to interaction with grid spacers)

• SCALE5 for neutronic analyses (criticality, reactivity coefficients, enrichment, burnup, fission-product formation)

• Code for mechanical analysis of the fuel assembly response

6. Determine optimum performance based on system constraints (e.g., core volume) and margins (e.g. maximum internal pressure of the fuel rod)

7. Prepare a written final report and present the results orally(the entire Department is invited to the presentation)

Topic for this semester

Comparison of new fuel types with standard uranium dioxide fuel. The new fuels are composites of two phases and include:

• Uranium-zirconium hydride: U/ZrH1.6

• Uranium silicide – silicon carbide: U3Si/SiC

• Uranium nitride-zirconium nitride: UN/Zr3N4

The new fuels have certain obvious advantages over UO2, namely higher thermal conductivity and greater uranium density. However, they may have not-so-obvious disadvantages that only detailed analysis of their performance in typical LWR operating conditions (power, burnup) can reveal. For the present project, the fuels will be assessed for their performance in a large BWR, including estimates of the cost-of-electricity for each fuel type.

Conduct of the class

Students perform the project as a team. Members of the team are broken up into subgroups of 2 to deal with the individual components of the overall project (e.g., neutronics, thermal hydraulics, fuel behavior, mechanical design) The groups meet during class with the instructor and the GSI to give a progress report, obtain advice and discuss design issues. The entire team is responsible for the final report.

Grading

• Student's ability to work with other team members developing a concept into a realistic design.

• Team-written final report (typically 50-100 pages in length), addressing all subgroup issues.

• Oral presentations of report: each member gives a 15-20 minute presentation of some part of the report, followed by a questioning by the instructor and the GSI