Dual Fluid, the Canadian-German nuclear technology company, has commissioned the Technical University of Dresden, the Technical University of Munich, and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) to carry out extensive safety-related simulations using a virtual reactor model. The work shows that the reactor reacts promptly, stably and benignly to changes in operating conditions.
A working group at the Chair of Hydrogen and Nuclear Energy Technology (WKET) at TU Dresden, led by Prof. Antonio Hurtado and Dr. Carsten Lange, carried out stability analyses of different reactor variants. For one model variant, it was shown that the reactor behaves stably in all considered operating conditions. Further work strongly suggests that this is also the case for other model variants.
Under the leadership of Prof. Rafael Macián-Juan, the Technical University of Munich and PSI were commissioned to calculate so-called transients in a preliminary assessment, using special reactor system codes. Transients are time-varying operating conditions that may be intended during normal operation but can also occur in the event of an accident. In all the scenarios studied, the reactor was shown to respond promptly, stably, and benignly (without large variations) to changes in operating parameters. This is a clear indication of the ability of a Dual Fluid reactor to fully autoregulate. The TU Munich carried out the calculations with different codes than the Paul Scherrer Institute. This assessment and code-to-code comparison was done as a first step in the framework of future activity for the licensing preparation. There will be more studies for a full safety evaluation required by licensing authorities.
All models and raw data resulting from the three collaborations are available to Dual Fluid so that future comparable analyses can be easily performed.