Thermo-mechanical analysis of the core vessel of pebble bed high temperature reactors

The Very High Temperature gas-cooled Reactor (VHTR) is one of the candidates for the next generation of nuclear reactors according to the IAEA. Evaluation of thermohydraulic performance and experimental comparison were proposed to the international research community. The HTR-10 was selected as a reference reactor of high temperature pebble bed gas-cooled reactor by OIEA to study the performance of some technology components under different conditions. Predicting the thermomechanical behavior of High Temperature Reactors (HTR) is an important contribution to the development of the technology of the pebble bed gas-cooled SMRs. The computational prediction of the thermomechanical behavior of this rector involves different physic-neutronic approach, thermohydraulic approach and detailed structural information. In these sense, three-dimensional thermomechanical analysis of the core vessel of pebble bed High Temperature Reactors is a great challenge due to the large geometric volume and complex structures. Multiscale approach and Multiphysics coupled techniques are others of the challenges in the simulation of reals situations. The main dimension of some of principal components of this reactor is known. One of the internal structures present in the high temperature pebble bed SMR is the core vessel. The core vessel structure provides several essential functions among which stand out: to supports and to confines the internal graphite elements while also maintaining the structural integrity of the reactor core. In this sense, the three-dimensional thermomechanical simulation of the core vessel of a High Temperature SMR using ANSYS Mechanical 2023R1 has been done. (author)