• Thermal Energy, Semester 1, position 5

The aims of the subject are acquiring academic knowledge about processes and equipment for nuclear energy utilization, about neutron processes and fission, principles of nuclear reactors design, reactor core cooling, nuclear fuel characteristics, transport and storage of nuclear waste, nuclear reactors safety, nuclear accidents in Nuclear Power Plants Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as current nuclear reactors developments.

Students are able to design nuclear reactor core, determine the thermal and neutron characteristics of nuclear fuel, moderator and reactor coolant, define basic elements of nuclear power plant safety and determine basic technical, technological, ecological and economic conditions and boundaries for the application of nuclear energy.

Processes and equipment of nuclear energy plants. Characteristics of nuclear fuel, atomic and nuclear processes important for the nuclear reactors operation. design of nuclear reactor material structure and critical dimensions. Diffusion and thermalization of neutrons. Solving of reactor equation. Operating characteristics and safety of nuclear reactors and nuclear power plants. Feedback between nuclear and thermal processes in the nuclear reactor core. Cooling of the nuclear fuel elements, heat transport and boiling crises. Computer codes for thermal-hydraulic simulation and analyses. Overview of nuclear energy in the World and its current development. The roll of the nuclear energy in the energy sustainable development.

The students solve the problems related to nuclear reactors design and analyses of its operation conditions. The numerical experiments are performed with the computer simulations of nuclear reactor processes: calculation of the radioactive chain decay, neutron life cycle and reactor equation solving for various types of nuclear reactors, the model development and computer simulation of the loss-of-feedwater accident in a plant with the pressurized water reactor.

Passed exams in Physics, Thermodynamics, Numerical methods.

Course handouts. Computer equipment. Software for numerical solving systems of differential equations. Software for the design of nuclear reactor core.

Total assigned hours: 75

New material: 20
Elaboration and examples (recapitulation): 10

Auditory exercises: 15
Laboratory exercises: 15
Calculation tasks: 0
Seminar paper: 0
Project: 0
Consultations: 0
Discussion/workshop: 0
Research study work: 0

Review and grading of calculation tasks: 0
Review and grading of lab reports: 5
Review and grading of seminar papers: 0
Review and grading of the project: 0
Test: 5
Test: 0
Final exam: 5

Activity during lectures: 5
Test/test: 35
Laboratory practice: 30
Calculation tasks: 0
Seminar paper: 0
Project: 0
Final exam: 30
Requirement for taking the exam (required number of points): 30

Klimov, A., Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Reactors, Mir Publishers, Moscow, 1981.; Tong, L.S., Design Improvement for Light Water Reactors, Hemisphere, New York, 1988.; Knief, R.A., Nuclear Energy Technology, Hemisphere, 1981.; Foster, A., Wright, R.L., Basic Nuclear Engineering, Allyn and Bacon, Inc., Boston, 1977. ; Knief, R.A., Nuclear Energy Technology, Hemisphere, 1981.