PWR core monitoring system and benchmarking

The PWR Power Shape Monitoring System (PSMS) provides site engineers with new capabilities for monitoring and predicting core power distributions. These capabilities can lead to increased plant output as a result of greater operating margins, better load maneuvering, earlier detection of anomalies, and improved fuel reliability. The heart of the PSMS consists of nodal code (NODEP-2/THERM-P) that computes the 3-D core power distribution. This code is coupled to a simplified nodal version of the COBRA-IIIC/MIT-2 thermal-hydraulic model to determine the DNBR. These calculations can be completed in about 30 seconds on a PRIME-750 mini computer. Activation of the calculations and review of the results is through user-friendly interactive software that can be tailored to the requirements and capabilities of the different categories of users through table-driven menus. The PSMS provides unique advances over core power monitoring systems based purely on measurements. The PSMS approach permits the three-dimensional core simulation model to be routinely corrected with in-core/ex-core measurements while simultaneously identifying consistent instrument errors