Self-Floating Efficient Solar Steam Generators Constructed Using Super-Hydrophilic N,O Dual-Doped Carbon Foams from Waste Polyester

Solar evaporation is recognized as a prospective technique to produce freshwater from non-drinkable water using inexhaustible solar energy.However,it remains a challenge to fabricate low-cost solar evaporators with obviously reduced water evaporation enthalpy to achieve high evaporation rates.Herein,N,O dual-doped carbon foam(NCF)is fabricated from the lowtemperature carbonization of poly(ethylene terephthalate)(PET)waste by melamine/molten salts at 340℃.During carbonization,melamine reacts with carboxylic acids of PET degradation products to yield a crosslinking network,and then molten salts catalyze the decarboxylation and dehydration to construct a stable framework.Owing to rich N,O-containing groups,3D interconnected pores,super-hydrophilicity,and ultra-low thermal conductivity(0.0599 W m^(−1) K^(−1)),NCF not only achieves high light absorbance(ca.99%)and solar-to-thermal conversion,but also promotes the formation of water cluster to reduce water evaporation enthalpy by ca.37%.Consequently,NCF exhibits a high evaporation rate(2.4 kg m^(−2) h^(−1)),surpassing the-state-of-the-art solar evaporators,and presents good antiacid/basic abilities,long-term salt-resistance,and self-cleaning ability.Importantly,a large-scale NCF-based outdoor solar desalination device is developed to produce freshwater.The daily freshwater production amount per unit area(6.3 kg)meets the two adults’daily water consumption.The trash-to-treasure strategy will give impetus to the development of low-cost,advanced solar evaporators from waste plastics for addressing the global freshwater shortage.

CFD analysis of a CiADS fuel assembly during the steam generator tube rupture accident based on the LBEsteamEulerFoam

Steam generator tube rupture(SGTR) accident is an important scenario needed to be considered in the safety analysis of lead-based fast reactors. When the steam generator tube breaks close to the main pump, water vapor will enter the reactor core, resulting in a two-phase flow of heavy liquid metal and water vapor in fuel assemblies. The thermal-hydraulic problems caused by the SGTR accident may seriously threaten reactor core's safety performance. In this paper, the open-source CFD calculation software OpenFOAM was used to encapsulate the improved Euler method into the self-developed solver LBEsteamEulerFoam. By changing different heating boundary conditions and inlet coolant types, the two-phase flow in the fuel assembly with different inlet gas content was simulated under various accident conditions. The calculation results show that the water vapor may accumulate in edge and corner channels. With the increase in inlet water vapor content, outlet coolant velocity increases gradually. When the inlet water vapor content is more than 15%, the outlet coolant temperature rises sharply with strong temperature fluctuation. When the inlet water vapor content is in the range of 5–20%, the upper part of the fuel assembly will gradually accumulate to form large bubbles. Compared with the VOF method, Euler method has higher computational efficiency. However, Euler method may cause an underestimation of the void fraction, so it still needs to be calibrated with future experimental data of the two-phase flow in fuel assembly.

Simultaneous Solar-driven Steam and Electricity Generation by Cost-effective,Easy Scale-up MnO 2-based Flexible Membranes

Harvesting solar energy in an effective manner for steam and electricity generation is a promising technique to simultaneously cope with the energy and water crises.However,the construction of efficient and easy scale-up photothermal materials for steam and electricity cogeneration remains challenging.Herein,we report a facile and cost-effective strategy to prepare MnO_(2)-decorated cotton cloth(MCx).The wide adsorption spectrum and excellent photothermal conversion ability of the in situ-formed MnO_(2)nanoparticles make the MCx to be advanced photothermal materials.Consequently,the hybrid device integrated with MCx as the photothermal layer and the thermoelectric(TE)module for electricity power conversion exhibits an extremely high evaporation rate of 2.24 kg m^(−2)h^(−1)under 1 kW m^(−2)irradiation,which is ranked among the most powerful solar evaporators.More importantly,during solar evaporation,the hybrid device produces an open-circuit voltage of 0.3 V and a power output of 1.6 W m^(−2)under 3 Sun irradiation,and outperforms most of the previously reported solar-driven electricity generation devices.Therefore,the integrated device with synergistic solar-thermal utilization opens up a green way toward simultaneous solar vapor and electric power generation in remote and resource-constrained areas.

Transient Analysis of Steam Generator in PWR Nuclear Power Plant

The water level control system of steam generator in a pressurized water reactor of nuchear power plant plays an important role which effects the water level control of the steam generator are due the reverse dynamics behavior,so the transient analysis of the steam generator should firstly solve their mathematical models.For determination of dynamic behavior and design and testing of the control system, a nonlinear math model is developed using one dimensional conservation equations of mass,momentum and energy of primary and secondary sides of the steam generator. The nonlinear model is verified with standard power plant data available in the references, then the steady states and transient calculations are performed for full power to 5% power reactor operation of the steam generator of Chinese Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant.

A Novel Computerized Water Level Control System of PWR Steam Generator of Nuclear Power Plant

This paper presents a novel method to solve old problem of water level control system of pressurized water reactor (PWR) steam generator (SG) of nuclear power plant (NPP) .The level control system of SG plays an important role which effects the reliablity,safty,cost of SG and its mathematical models have been solved.A model of the conventional controller is presented and the existing problems are discussed. A novel rule based realtime control technique is designed with a computerized water level control (CWLC) system for SG of PWR NPP.The performance of this is evaluated for full power reactor operating conditions by applying different transient conditions of SG′s data of Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant (QNPP).

Prediction of External Exposure during Dismantling of Steam Generator

The decommissioning of nuclear power plants is in the Slovak Republic an actual issue. In 2015 started the second decommissioning stage of nuclear power plant V1 in Jaslovské Bohunice. This stage involves the dismantling and segmentation of activated (reactor pressure vessel, reactor internals) and contaminated parts (steam generators, pressurizer). From this reason it is necessary to investigate the radiation situation in the vicinity of the component to be cut. The presented results show that during remote dismantling the exposure is small (compared with the fragmentation tasks). Moreover, when the pre-dismantling decontamination with decontamination factor of 100 is applied, the total collective effective dose is below the yearly limit of 20 mSv for workers.

Experimental investigation on pressure-buildup characteristics of a water lump immerged in a molten lead pool

Motivated to understand the pressure-buildup characteristics in a circumstance of a water droplet immerged inside a heavy liquid metal pool,which is a key phenomenon during a Steam Generator Tube Rupture accident of Lead-cooled Fast Reactor,many experiments have been conducted by injecting water lumps into a molten lead pool at Sun Yat-sen University.In order to deepen the understanding of the influence of melt material,this lead experiment was compared with a Lead-Bismuth-Eutectic(LBE)experiment in the literature.For both experiments,a steam explosion occurred in a small part of the experi-mental runs,which generally leads to strengthened pressure buildup.Regarding the non-explosion experimental cases,the impact of all parameters employed in lead experiments(i.e.,water lump volume,water lump shape,molten pool depth,and temperature of water and melt)on the pressure buildup is non-negligible and similar to that in our previous experiments using LBE.Notably,limited pressure buildup with an increase in water lump volume was also observed.A slightly more violent pressure buildup tends to appear in the lead experiments than in the LBE experiments under the same experimental conditions,which may be due to the higher thermal conductivity of lead than of LBE.In a few experimental runs with a relatively low melt temperature close to the melting point of lead,local solidification of liquid lead was observed,restricting pressure buildup.For the lead and LBE experiments,the calculated melt kinetic energy conversion efficiencyηhas a relatively small value(not exceeding 1.6%),and theηvalues have an overall positive correlation with the impulse on the molten pool.

Application of General Fractal Dimension to Coupling Fault Diagnosis

This paper presents the coucept of general and sensitive dimension, and also proposes the calculation formula of the general dimension least squares method. By calculating and analyzing the power spectrum and general dimension from the fault sample, the relationship is achieved between sample status and the general dimension from vibration signals of the equipment so as to provide reference to fault diagnosis. Furthermore, a correlation function of general dimension is proposed, and calculations are carried out for a monitor signal and samples signal. The diagnosis method based on fractal theory is effective through the concrete examples of the steam electric generating set fault diagnosis, and the correlation coefficient of general dimension between a monitor signal and samples signal can improve the accuracy for fault diagnosis.

Plant-leaf-inspired MXene-silk composite for intelligent solar steam generation combined with mechanical actuation

Solar steam generators based on photothermal materials are important in producing fresh water.However,conventional solar steam generators are difficult to self-adapt to the complex external environment as organisms.Herein,inspired by the plant leaf,we propose a photothermal composite based on MXene and silk to add more functionality.On one hand,the composite achieves an evaporation rate of 1.51 kg·m^(−2)·h^(−1)and a conversion efficiency of 86.9%under a solar intensity of 1 kW·m^(−2),mimicking the water transpiration of plant leaf.On the other hand,the MXene-silk-based actuator shows a maximum bending curvature of 0.91 cm^(−1)under a solar intensity of 5 kW·m^(−2).Furthermore,an intelligent solar system is constructed utilizing the synergy of solar steam generator and actuator,which advances the research from the material level to the system level.Mimicking the behavior of plant leaf,the system can automatically open during the day to generate steam and fresh water.And at night or in bad weather,it will automatically close to prevent external pollution such as dust,achieving intelligent anti-fouling.This research will have good application prospects in less developed areas.Meanwhile,it also provides a certain reference value for exploring multi-functional photothermal devices in the future.

High-efficiency inspecting method for mobile robots based on task planning for heat transfer tubes in a steam generator

Many heat transfer tubes are distributed on the tube plates of a steam generator that requires periodic inspection by robots.Existing inspection robots are usually involved in issues:Robots with manipulators need complicated installation due to their fixed base;tube mobile robots suffer from low running efficiency because of their structural restricts.Since there are thousands of tubes to be checked,task planning is essential to guarantee the precise,orderly,and efficient inspection process.Most in-service robots check the task tubes using row-by-row and column-bycolumn planning.This leads to unnecessary inspections,resulting in a long shutdown and affecting the regular operation of a nuclear power plant.Therefore,this paper introduces the structure and control system of a dexterous robot and proposes a task planning method.This method proceeds into three steps:task allocation,base position search,and sequence planning.To allocate the task regions,this method calculates the tool work matrix and proposes a criterion to evaluate a sub-region.And then all tasks contained in the sub-region are considered globally to search the base positions.Lastly,we apply an improved ant colony algorithm for base sequence planning and determine the inspection orders according to the planned path.We validated the optimized algorithm by conducting task planning experiments using our robot on a tube sheet.The results show that the proposed method can accomplish full task coverage with few repetitive or redundant inspections and it increases the efficiency by 33.31% compared to the traditional planning algorithms.

Variants of Nuclear Power Plants of Small and Medium Power with Heavy Liquid-Metal Coolants

New design solutions have been proposed for a BRS-GPG type reactor circuit, which are different from transport and stationary low and medium-powered reactor installations cooled with heavy liquid-metal coolants, and which correspond to the evolutionary development of such installations. While developing these solutions, the available experience in creating and operating Soviet pilot and commercial power plants cooled with lead-bismuth coolants was used, including investigations, primarily experimental ones, carried out by team of authors in justification of a capacity range (50 - 250 MW) of low and medium-powered reactor plants with horizontal steam generators (BRS- GPG) proposed and elaborated at the NNSTU.

Graphite dust resuspension in an HTR-10 steam generator

Graphite dust has an important effect on the safety of high-temperature gas-cooled reactors（HTR）.The flow field in the steam generator was studied by the computational fluid dynamics（CFD） method,with the results indicating that the friction velocity in the windward and the leeward of the heat transfer tubes is relatively low and is higher at the sides.Further analysis of the resuspension of graphite dust indicates that the resuspension fraction reaches nearly zero for particles with a diameter less than 1 μm,whereas it will increases as the helium velocity in the steam generator increases for particle size larger than 1 μm.Moreover,the resuspension fraction increases as the particle size increases.The results also indicate that resuspension of the particles with sizes larger than 1 μm exhibited obvious differences in different parts of the steam generator.

Two Phase Flow Stability in the HTR-10 Steam Generator

A 10MW High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTR-10) designed by the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology (INET) is now being constructed. The steam generator (SG) in the HTR-10 is one of the most important components for reactor safety. The thermal-hydraulic performance of the SG was investigated. A full scale HTR-10 Steam Generator Two Tube Engineering Model Test Facility (SGTM-10) was installed and tested at INET. This paper describes the SGTM-10 thermal hydraulic experimental system in detail. The SGTM-10 simulates the actual thermal and structural parameters of the HTR-10. The SGTM-10 includes three separated loops: the primary helium loop, the secondary water loop, and the tertiary cooling water loop. Two parallel tubes are arranged in the test assembly. The main experimental equipment is shown in the paper. Expermental results are given illustrating the effects of the outlet pressures, the heating power, and the inlet subcooling.

Scaling Analysis of Thermal-Hydraulics for Steam Generator Passive Heat Removal System

Steam generator passive heat removal system(SG-PHRS) is used as a passively safe mode to provide decay heat removal in some advanced pressurized water reactors. Due to the structure characteristics of steam generator(SG), there are two natural circulation loops coupling in SG-PHRS in case of a safety-related event. The existing natural circulation scaling criteria could be used to simulate the natural circulation inside SG. Two-phase natural circulation loop is studied carefully, and the dominant effects of SG on behaviors of natural circulation in passive heat removal system are presented. Based on the understanding of SG-PHRS operation, system pressure transient scaling and two-phase natural circulation scaling are analyzed by establishing the relevant continuity,integral momentum and energy equations in one-dimensional area-averaged forms. With modified equations,similarity criteria for SG-PHRS are obtained for engineering application. In addition, equal height simulation and reduced height simulation are studied.

Methodology for ranking controllable parameters to enhance operation of a steam generator with a combined Artificial Neural Network and Design of Experiments approach

The operation of complex systems can drift away from the initial design conditions,due to environmental condi-tions,equipment wear or specific restrictions.Steam generators are complex equipment and their proper opera-tion relies on the identification of their most relevant parameters.An approach to rank the operational parameters of a subcritical steam generator of an actual 360 MW power plant is presented.An Artificial Neural Network-ANN delivers a model to estimate the steam generator efficiency,electric power generation and flue gas outlet temperature as a function of seven input parameters.The ANN is trained with a two-year long database,with training errors of 0.2015 and 0.2741(mean absolute and square error)and validation errors of 0.32%and 2.350(mean percent and square error).That ANN model is explored by means of a combination of situations proposed by a Design of Experiment-DoE approach.All seven controlled parameters showed to be relevant to express both steam generator efficiency and electric power generation,while primary air flow rate and speed of the dynamic classifier can be neglected to calculate flue gas temperature as they are not statistically significant.DoE also shows the prominence of the primary air pressure in respect to the steam generator efficiency,electric power generation and the coal mass flow rate for the calculation of the flue gas outlet temperature.The ANN and DoE combined methodology shows to be promising to enhance complex system efficiency and helpful whenever a biased behavior must be brought back to stable operation.