Oregon State University has hosted an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) International Collaborative Standard Problem (ICSP) through testing conducted on the Multi-Application Small Light Water (MASLWR) facility. The MASLWR facility features a full-time natural circulation loop in the primary vessel and a unique pressure suppression device for accident scenarios. Automatic...
Oregon State University has recently conducted a complete core conversion analysis as part of the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors Pprogram. The goals of the thermal hydraulic analyses were to calculate natural circulation flow rates, coolant temperatures and fuel temperatures as a function of core power for both...
In early 2000, the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) was created to perform research and development for the next generation nuclear systems. Among the selected nuclear systems was the Very High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (VHTR). Then in 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) decided that the Next Generation Nuclear...
This project was a proof of concept of the use of the RAVEN software, a tool developed for the Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) approach, with RELAP5-3D. This novel approach combines older probabilistic and mechanistic approaches to look at how and why the complex systems of a nuclear power...
The nuclear industry has long relied upon bounding parametric analyses in predicting the safety margins of reactor designs undergoing design-basis accidents. These methods have been known to return highly-conservative results, limiting the operating conditions of the reactor. The Best-Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) method using a modernized version of the Code-Scaling,...