IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i11p2898-d367978.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integral PWR-Type Small Modular Reactor Developmental Status, Design Characteristics and Passive Features: A Review

Author

Listed:
  • Chireuding Zeliang

    (Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada)

  • Yi Mi

    (Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada)

  • Akira Tokuhiro

    (Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada)

  • Lixuan Lu

    (Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada)

  • Aleksey Rezvoi

    (Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada)

Abstract

In recent years, the trend in small modular reactor (SMR) technology development has been towards the water-cooled integral pressurized water reactor (iPWR) type. The innovative and unique characteristics of iPWR-type SMRs provide an enhanced safety margin, and thus offer the potential to expand the use of safe, clean, and reliable nuclear energy to a broad range of energy applications. Currently in the world, there are about eleven (11) iPWR-type SMRs concepts and designs that are in various phases of development: under construction, licensed or in the licensing review process, the development phase, and conceptual design phase. Lack of national and/or internatonal comparative framework for safety in SMR design, as well as the proprietary nature of designs introduces non-uniformity and uncertainties in regulatory review. That said, the major primary reactor coolant system components, such as the steam generator (SG), pressurizer (PRZ), and control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) are integrated within the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) to inherently eliminate or minimize potential accident initiators, such as LB-loss of coolant accidents (LOCAs). This paper presents the design status, innovative features and characteristics of iPWR-type SMRs. We delineate the common technology trends, and highlight the key features of each design. These reactor concepts exploit natural physical laws such as gravity to achieve the safety functions with high level of margin and reliability. In fact, many SMR designs employ passive safety systems (PSS) to meet the evolving stringent regulatory requirements, and the extended consideration for severe accidents. A generic classification of PSS is provided. We constrain our discussion to the decay heat removal system, safety injection system, reactor depressurization system, and containment system. A review and comparative assessment of these passive features in each iPWR-type SMR design is considered, and we underline how it maybe more advantageous to employ passive systems in SMRs in contrast to conventional reactor designs.

Suggested Citation

  • Chireuding Zeliang & Yi Mi & Akira Tokuhiro & Lixuan Lu & Aleksey Rezvoi, 2020. "Integral PWR-Type Small Modular Reactor Developmental Status, Design Characteristics and Passive Features: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-22, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:11:p:2898-:d:367978
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/11/2898/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/11/2898/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlo L. Vinoya & Aristotle T. Ubando & Alvin B. Culaba & Wei-Hsin Chen, 2023. "State-of-the-Art Review of Small Modular Reactors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-30, April.
    2. Pablo Fernández-Arias & Diego Vergara & Álvaro Antón-Sancho, 2023. "Bibliometric Review and Technical Summary of PWR Small Modular Reactors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-15, July.
    3. Jianhui Wu & Jingen Chen & Chunyan Zou & Xiaoxiao Li, 2022. "Accident Modeling and Analysis of Nuclear Reactors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-3, August.
    4. Seyed Hadi Ghazaie & Khashayar Sadeghi & Ekaterina Sokolova & Evgeniy Fedorovich & Amirsaeed Shirani, 2020. "Comparative Analysis of Hybrid Desalination Technologies Powered by SMR," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-17, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:11:p:2898-:d:367978. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.