Comparative Study in the Stability Analysis Code of LAPUR5.2 and LAPUR6.0 for the Kuosheng NPP

Under certain conditions, boiling water reactors (BWRs) would be susceptible to couple neutron-thermalhydraulic instability. It is important to predict such potential problems as early as possible and prevent the core instability from happening. In each BWR reload core design, fuel vendors are required to provide instability boundaries on power/flow map to assure safety operation of the nuclear reactor. In Taiwan, a LAPUR5.2 methodology had been adapted to build up the remarkable analysis mode for different types BWRs to verify vendor’s results. However, with upgrading nuclear safety technology, most of boiling water reactors has been adopting partial length fuel assemblies to reduce two-phase pressure drop and void fraction, to improve reactor stability. The question is that LAPUR5.2 methodology cannot precisely analysis stability characteristics from the variation of flow area in fuel assemblies. From the reasons of upgrading stability analysis, a LAPUR6.0 methodology had built to do the related researches. This research was based on a comparison study between LAPUR5.2 and LAPUR6.0 to realize the major differences and their effects on stability characteristics. According to the comparison results for Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 Cycle 21 reload design, it shows that LAPUR6.0 can completely present pressure drop, void fraction and density reactivity coefficient from the changing of flow area and fuel spacers.Copyright © 2012 by ASME