Numerical simulation of supercritical water cooled reactor using lumped parameter model

The concept of a nuclear reactor cooled by supercritical water is of current interest because of its potential to achieve higher thermal efficiency and a compact system design. In the present work, for a supercritical water cooled reactor, the variation of mean coolant temperature with respect to some important design parameters has been studied. A lumped parameter mathematical model has been used for numerical simulation, along with International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam equations of state for properties of supercritical water and a heat transfer correlation for supercritical water. This parametric study can be used for developing codes for numerical simulation and optimization of supercritical water cooled reactors. (author)