Real-Time Simulation of CANDO Heat-Transport System

Abstract

Operating plants such as nuclear generating stations and chemical process plants are large, complex and expensive, involve dangerous or toxic substances, and incorporate remote and indirect sensing. To assist a plant operator in monitoring and assessing the current status of a CANDU nuclear power plant, a knowledge-based operator companion has been proposed by AECL. An important component of the envisaged system is a real-time simulator of the primary heat transport system of a CANDU reactor, intended to enhance trend analysis of the heat transport system. Transient calculations are performed to update flow, pressure, mass and enthalpy using the conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy, and a rate form of the equation of state. Two approaches have been taken in implementing the simulator; flow and pressure only are treated implicitly (semi-implicit method) and, secondly, all four parameters are treated implicitly (fully-implicit method). The implementation and performance of the two methods are compared.