A generalized model for fuel channel bore estimation in AGR cores

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Young, Andrew and Berry, Craig and West, Graeme M. and McArthur, Stephen D.J. (2019) A generalized model for fuel channel bore estimation in AGR cores. Nuclear Engineering and Design, 352. pp. 1-10. 110158. ISSN 0029-5493 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2019.110158)

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Abstract

One of the major life-limiting factors of an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) nuclear power station is the graphite core as it cannot be repaired or replaced and therefore detailed information about the health of the core is vital for continued safe operation. The graphite bricks that comprise the core experience gradual degradation during operation as a result of irradiation. Routine physical inspection of the graphite core fuel channels is performed by specialist inspection equipment during outages every 12 months to 3 years. It has also been shown to be advantageous to supplement this periodic inspection information with analysis of operational data which can provide additional insights into the core health. One such approach is through the use of online monitoring data called the Fuel Grab Load Trace (FGLT). An FGLT is a measure of the perceived load of the fuel assembly with contributions from aerodynamic forces and frictional forces, which is related to bore diameter. This paper describes enhancements to existing analysis of FGLT data which, to date, has focussed solely on using data from a single reactor at a time to build bore estimation models, by considering data from multiple reactors to produce a generalised model of bore estimation. This paper initially describes the process of producing a bore estimation from an FGLT by isolating the contribution that relates to the fuel channel bore and then discusses the limitations with the existing bore estimation model. Improvements are then proposed for the bore estimation model and a detailed assessment is undertaken to understand the effect of each of these proposed improvements. In addition, the effect of introducing non-linear regression models to further enhance the bore estimation is explored. The existing model is trained on data from one reactor in the UK and therefore the results produced from it are only applicable to this reactor. However, out of the remaining 13 nuclear reactors currently in operation, 3 also have a similar construction to the reactor the model is trained on, and these should all produce similar FGLT data. Therefore, a generalised model is proposed that produces bore estimations for four AGRs station’s reactors, compared with one previously. It is shown that this approach offers an improved overall bore estimation model.

ORCID iDs

Young, Andrew ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6338-6631, Berry, Craig ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6824-0268, West, Graeme M. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0884-6070 and McArthur, Stephen D.J. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1312-8874;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)