Research activities on a supercritical pressure water reactor in Korea

This paper presents the research activities performed to date for the development of a supercritical pressure water-cooled reactor (SCWR) in Korea. The research areas include a conceptual design of an SCWR with an internal flow recirculation, a reactor core conceptual design, a heat transfer test with supercritical CO2, an adaptation of an existing safety analysis code to the supercritical pressure condition, and an evaluation of candidate materials through a corrosion study. Methods to reduce the cladding temperature are introduced from two different perspectives, namely, thermal-hydraulics and core neutronics. Briefly described are the results of an experiment on the heat transfer at a supercritical pressure, an experiment that is essential for the analysis of the subchannels of fuel assemblies and the analysis of a system safety. An existing system code has been adapted to SCWR conditions, and the process of a first-hand validation is presented. Finally, the corrosion test results of the candidate materials for an SCWR are introduced.