Study on Steady Operational Characteristics of Floating Nuclear Reactor Under Ocean Condition

Abstract Different from land-based reactors, floating reactors are affected by the ocean condition. Numerical simulation is conducted to study the effects of heaving and rolling motion on typical floating nuclear reactor (FNR) under rated power operation by ARSAC code with ocean condition calculation module. The calculation results have shown that heaving motion can cause the periodic fluctuations in the flow rate of both the primary and secondary loops in FNR. The amplitude of heaving motion is the main influence factor on the flow rate fluctuation of the primary loop while the effect of heaving motion period is limited. Rolling motion can cause the out-phase flow fluctuation in the two symmetric loops of the primary system. However, the rolling motion has limited impact on the core flow rate and cannot cause dramatic changes of system parameters at the core. Within the range of motion parameters used in this paper, heaving and rolling motion cannot have a substantial impact on the safe operation of FNR under rated power operation.