Akihiro Uchibori of the Sector of Fast Reactor and Advanced Reactor Research and Development at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and his colleagues announced that they have developed a new simulation method for evaluating the safety of sodium-cooled fast reactors and performing design optimization. The group developed a method that integrates simulations that were previously performed for individual regions within a nuclear plant. The method can be used to simultaneously simulate all regions, while considering various conditions and maintaining conventional high speeds. The developed simulation method will be incorporated into the integrated system "ARKADIA" that supports the social implementation of innovative nuclear reactors and will be made freely available to private companies and educational institutions in the near future. The results were published in the June 15 issue of the Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science.
In recent years, the government announced the "Green Growth Strategy Through Achieving Carbon Neutrality in 2050" and "The Basic Policy for the Realization of GX," which entailed emphasis on the development and construction of innovative reactors; sodium-cooled reactors have been mentioned as a prominent candidate in this regard. To promote the social implementation of these reactors, the organization has been developing "ARKADIA," which is used to perform simulations for safety evaluation and design. The proposed method can be used to simulate temperature and pressure changes over time in every designated region within nuclear power plants. The method exhibits excellent repeatability and enables the simultaneous simulation of several regions under various conditions, while maintaining simplicity and high speed.
Conventional methods entail separately simulating each region. It requires a highly specialized engineer to provide the relevant values at each step, and tracking the impact of the changes in one region on other regions is difficult.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a simulation was conducted to reduce the size of the containment vessel while maintaining safety under the condition that a sodium leak accident was assumed, and safety equipment was added.
"ARKADIA" is scheduled to be made available in a phased manner, starting with the technologies that are ready for deployment, depending on contracts and other procedures.
Journal Information
Publication: Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science
Title: ARKADIA—For the Innovation of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Design
DOI: 10.1115/1.4054726
This article has been translated by JST with permission from The Science News Ltd. (https://sci-news.co.jp/). Unauthorized reproduction of the article and photographs is prohibited.