atw 2018-07

atw Vol. 63 (2018) | Issue 6/7 ı June/July
364
ABSTRACTS | ENGLISH
Poland Faces Delays and Decisions as It
Makes Ambitious Plans to Go Nuclear
NucNet | Page 366
Poland has drawn up ambitious plans to build up to
6,000 MW of nuclear generating capacity, potentially
at two sites, by the late 2030s or early 2040s.
But the government is yet to take a final decision
and the deadline has pushed back several times,
with plans hampered by changes in government,
problems putting in place the right domestic legislation
and the need to find the right financing model.
Poland needs nuclear because of its low carbon
footprint and as a way to decrease the country’s
carbon emissions. Poland is no newcomer to nuclear
technology. The Polish National Centre for Nuclear
Research (NCBJ) has operated a research reactor at
Swierk. In 1971 the government made its first
binding decision to build a nuclear plant. The
project was formally scrapped in 1990.
49 th Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology
(AMNT 2018): Opening Address
Ralf Güldner | Page 369
As in other years, DAtF and the German Nuclear
Society (KTG), offer a comprehensive program
with their 49 th Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology,
giving insights into many aspects of nuclear
technology and contributing to the international
exchange of knowledge and experience in industry,
research, politics and administration. In keeping
with long-standing tradition, even in the year
preceding its 50th anniversary, on 7 and 8 May 2019
in Berlin, the AMNT remains the only conference
in Germany, and one of the few in Europe, that
combines all the issues surrounding nuclear
technology under one roof and is dedicated to every
sector of the industry.
TESPA-ROD Code Prediction of the Fuel Rod
Behaviour During Long-term Storage
Heinz G. Sonnenburg | Page 374
The fuel rod code TESPA-ROD is applicable to LOCA
transients and RIA transients. Recently, code
models have been implemented in order to predict
the transitional fuel rod behaviour during longterm
storage. In particular modelling for both
long-term fuel swelling and associated helium gas
release have been implemented. First TESPA-ROD
code predictions for the long-term transient,
including wet storage, drying procedure and dry
storage indicate gap closure between fuel and
cladding. Thus, stress level in the cladding may
depend on both the internal fission gas pressure and
the fuel/cladding mechanical interaction.
New Build Projects Abroad – A Challenge
for Regulation
Christian Raetzke | Page 378
Numerous reactors are under construction or in the
planning stage worldwide. However, compared to
the situation a few decades ago, when the majority
of the plants in operation today were built,
the project models and boundary conditions are
much more diverse, so that traditional models of
regulation, approval and supervision (regulation)
sometimes reach their limits. The article provides
examples of new challenges. Regulation must find
new answers to the challenges. However, it must
not ignore the proven principles and instruments in
order to ensure nuclear safety.
Safety Assessment of the Research Reactors
FRM II And FR MZ After the Fukushima
Event
Axel Pichlmaier, Heiko Gerstenberg, Anton
Kastenmüller, Christian Krokowski, Ulrich Lichnovsky,
Roland Schätzlein, Michael Schmidt,
Christopher Geppert, Klaus Eberhardt
and Sergei Karpuk | Page 379
After the events at the Fukushima-I nuclear power
plant (NPP) in 2011 the Reaktorsicherheitskommission
(RSK) has carried out an overall assessment
of the German nuclear fleet with respect to extreme
(beyond design base) events. This paper deals only
with the research reactors (RR) FRM II (Garching)
and FR MZ (Mainz). The findings of the RSK, its
recommendations and their status of implementation
will be presented.
Decommissioning of Germany’s First
Nuclear Reactor
Ulrich Lichnovsky, Julia Rehberger,
Axel Pichlmaier and Anton Kastenmüller | Page 383
FRM started operating in 1957 as the first nuclear
reactor in Germany. Reactor operation ended in
2000. Licensing procedures for the deconstruction
and dismantling of the reactor started in 1998. In
2014 the Technical University of Munich (TUM) was
granted the license to decommission the reactor.
The article describes the (long) way to the license
for dismantling of the reactor and gives a short overview
of the current state of the decommissioning
project. Results of the (pre-)licensing stage are
presented: disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and
preparation of the safety report containing details
on fire protection, radiological characterization
(neutron activation and contamination), waste
management and safety analysis. With regard to
the current state of the project we will discuss:
clearance of material and current obstacles.
While You were Sleeping:
The Unnoticed Loss of Carbon-free
Generation in the United States
Chris Vlahoplus, Ed Baker, Sean Lawrie,
Paul Quinlan and Benjamin Lozier | Page 389
The United States has embarked on actions to
combat climate change by putting a focus on
lowering the carbon emissions from the electric
generation sector. A pillar of this approach is to
promote the greater use of renewable resources,
such as wind and solar. The past decade has seen
significant growth in carbon-free energy from wind
and solar. Generation from these resources reached
333,000 GWh in 2017. However, unbeknownst to
many who care about climate change, most of the
progress made to date through renewables is at
significant risk due to the loss or potential loss of
more than 228,000 GWh of nuclear carbon-free
generation.
German Secretarial Management ISO/TC
85/SC 6 Reactor Technology
Janine Winkler and Michael Petri | Page 392
On behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment,
Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
(BMU) and represented by the Office of the Nuclear
Safety Standards Commission (KTA), DIN has taken
over the Secretariat of ISO/TC 85/SC 6 Reactor
technology in conjunction with China in 2018. The
new role provides an opportunity to increase
German participation and influence in the field
of International Standardization, for instance
via conversion of German Industrial and KTA
Standards into International Standards. This
demonstrates that Germany is willing to actively
participate in the ongoing efforts to increase
Nuclear Safety in the peaceful use of Nuclear
Energy.
Thermal Hydraulic Analysis
of the Convective Heat Transfer of an
Air-cooled BWR Spent Fuel Assembly
Christine Partmann, Christoph Schuster
and Antonio Hurtado | Page 397
Since the reactor accident in Fukushima Daiichi,
the vulnerability of spent fuel pools (SFP) is more
focused in nuclear safety research. This paper
presents the experimental findings about the
convective heat transfer of a boiling water reactor
(BWR) spent FA under the absence of water. These
studies are performed within the joint project
SINABEL that is funded by the German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research to investigate
the thermal hydraulics of selected accident
scenarios in SFP experimentally and numerically.
Further Development of a Thermal-
Hydraulics Two-Phase Flow Tool
Verónica Jáuregui Chávez, Uwe Imke,
Javier Jiménez and V.H. Sánchez-Espinoza | Page 401
The numerical simulation tool TWOPORFLOW is
under development at the Institute for Neutron
Physics and Reactor Technology (INR) of the
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). TWOPOR-
FLOW is a thermal-hydraulics code that is able to
simulate single- and two-phase flow in a structured
or unstructured porous medium using a flexible 3-D
Cartesian geometry. The main purpose of this work
is the extension, improvement and validation of
TWOPORFLOW in order to simulate the thermalhydraulic
behavior of Boiling Water Reactor (BWR)
cores.
Special Features of Measurement
for the Radiological Characterization
of High-level Radioactive Waste
Marina Sokcic-Kostic and
Roland Schultheis | Page 404
In nuclear power plants occasionally highly radioactive
waste is produced, such as fragments of
defective fuel elements or filters from hot cells.
NUKEM Technologies Engineering Services has
designed and implemented waste treatment options
for such waste in projects that characterise highlevel
radioactive waste and condition it in accordance
with the requirements for long-term storage.
This also includes a volume reduction to minimize
future storage costs. The focus of this article is on
the measurement of highly active waste and its
implications.
Confidence in Nuclear Safeguards at Risk as
Trump Quits One Deal to Pursue Another
John Shepherd | Page 422
Confidence in nuclear safeguards at risk as Trump
quits one deal to pursue another. By the time you sit
down to read this article, Donald Trump and Kim
Jong Un may have had an historic sit-down of their
own – in fact the first meeting between a sitting US
president and a leader of North Korea.
Abstracts | English