From the Nuclear Engineering/Soft Computing department of the Institute of Process Engineering, Process Automation and Measurement Technology (IPM) at the university, colleagues Dr.-Ing. Stefan Renger, Dipl.-Ing. Sören Alt and M. Eng. Hassan Chahi took part in the most important international conference in the research field of analytical and experimental thermohydraulics for nuclear plants. This conference takes place every two years, alternating between Asia, Europe and America.
IPM staff presented the results of research topics currently being conducted in the department on reactor safety research, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).
In 2011, Germany decided to politically phase out the use of nuclear energy for electricity production. However, numerous experts will be needed for decades to come to ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants until the end of their service life and for their decommissioning and dismantling. In addition, Germany would like to retain the expertise to be able to assess the safety of nuclear technology as it continues to develop internationally (e.g. in our neighboring countries). Therefore, presentations of our own current research results and the exchange of opinions on new results from other countries at international conferences are a suitable way of maintaining and further developing expertise in this specialist field at the current state of science and technology.
At NURETH-16, Dr. Renger presented the results of the current BMWi project "Local effects in the pressurized water reactor (PWR) core due to zinc borate deposits after loss-of-coolant accidents" in a special session on the Generic Safety Issue 191 (GSI-191) dealt with by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in which the problem of safe sump suction after a loss-of-coolant accident is specifically addressed by the American side. This topic, which IPM has been researching for many years, is still of great relevance, especially in the USA.
In his presentation "System analysis and isothermal separate effect experiments of the accident behavior in PWR spent fuel storage pools", Mr. Chahi explained the findings obtained to date from literature analyses and the results of his own individual effect investigations, which were obtained as part of the BMBF joint project "Safety of wet storage facilities for spent fuel elements: experimental analysis, modelling and validation for system and CFD codes" (SINABEL).
At the conference, discussions were held (especially in the GSI-191 session) on the topics presented, but also on general topics of nuclear technology research, existing contacts were maintained and new contacts were made with international research colleagues working in the field of thermohydraulics with the option of future cooperation.
The projects mentioned in this article are funded by
under the funding codes 150 1431 and 150 1468 and
under the funding code 02NUK027D.
Contact:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Kästner
Institute of Process Engineering, Process Automation and Metrology (IPM),
w.kaestner(at)hszg.de
Phone: 03583 61 15 53