SSTC NRS Provides Technical Support to the SNRIU in Neutron Source Licensing

Oleksandr Kukhotskyi, expert of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (SSTC NRS), spoke on the issue within the XII International Conference “Problems of Modern Nuclear Energy”. The event was held on 16-18 November 2016 in the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.

Oleksandr Kukhotskyi, expert of SSTC NRS

Currently, the SNRIU with the technical support of the SSTC NRS performs licensing and commissioning of the nuclear subcritical assembly called the Neutron Source. The facility is under construction in the National Scientific Center “Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology”.

“Licensing of new nuclear installations is impossible without the regulator or TSO having analytical instruments and developed computer models. That is why we develop models of critical components of the Neutron Source”, said SSTC NRS expert.

At present, the SSTC NRS has two thermohydraulic models developed using CFD code ANSYS CFX. The results obtained showed good correspondence with calculations of the preliminary safety analysis report for the Neutron Source. In future, these models will be used for review of justifying documents, in particular, the documents on the analysis of transients for the Neutron Source.

“In the workflow, we revealed a set of open issues to be eliminated. In particular, the regulatory framework lacks specific requirements for the development, verification and validation of computer models for the Neutron Source”, said Oleksandr Kukhotskyi.

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