Detailed Simulation of the Refuelling Operation for a Single Fuel Channel Using RFSP

Abstract

The fuel-management code RFSP was used for the first time in this present application to simulate in detail the non-instantaneous refuelling operation of a fuel channel recently refuelled in the CANDU 6 reactor at Pt. Lepreau. The channel in question is Q-03, a low-flow fuel channel. Trends of such time-varying parameters as power, detector flux, and zone levels, calculated at intervals of a few full-power-minutes of operation, resulted in a very detailed profile of the overall reactor response to the refuelling of a single channel. Comparisons made to data collected on-line during the actual refuelling event demonstrated the accuracy of RFSP predictions. This study also provided a basis to test a recently developed enhancement to RFSP's spatial-control algorithm.