NEAR TERM APPLICATION OF SUPERCRITICAL WATER TECHNOLOGIES

摘要

A pressurized water reactor with a supercritical water primary loop is analyzed (PWR-SC) within this paper. It will be shown that the PWR-SC offers considerable advantages in the fields of safety, economy and efficiency compared with a conventional PWR design. A cycle analysis shows that the net plant efficiency increases by 2% compared to currently operated or built systems. In addition, the mass flow rate of the primary side is strongly decreased, which enables a reduction of the primary pump power by a factor of 4. In the secondary loop, the mass flow rate can be decreased by about 15%, which allows downscaling of all secondary side components such as turbines, condensers and feed-water preheat systems as a consequence of the high core exit temperature. A coupled core analysis and a hot channel factor analysis are performed to demonstrate the promising safety features of the PWR-SC and to show the technical feasibility of such a system.