Construction of dynamic model of CANDU-SCWR using moving boundary method

CANDU-SCWR (Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor) is one type of Generation IV reactors being developed in Canada. Its dynamic characteristics are different from existing CANDU reactors due to the supercritical conditions of the coolant. To study the behaviours of such reactors under disturbances and to design adequate control systems, it is essential to have an accurate dynamic model to describe such a reactor. One dynamic model is developed for CANDU-SCWR in this paper. In the model construction process, three regions have been considered: Liquid Region I, Liquid Region II and Vapour Region, depending on bulk and wall temperatures being higher or lower the pseudo-critical temperature. A moving boundary method is used to describe the movement of boundaries across these regions. Some benefits of adopting moving boundary method are illustrated by comparing with the fixed boundary method. The results of the steady-state simulation based on the developed model agree well with the design parameters. The transient simulations demonstrate that the model can predict the dynamic behaviours of CANDU-SCWR. Furthermore, to investigate the responses of the reactor to small amplitude perturbations and to facilitate control system designs, a least-square based system identification technique is used to obtain a set of linear dynamic models around the design point. The responses based on the linear dynamic models are validated with simulation results from nonlinear CANDU-SCWR dynamic model.