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Nuclear Reactor Simulator

dalton-nrs.manchester.ac.uk

41–50 of 139 posts

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#41
Former US Navy submarine nuclear reactor operator here.

Adjusting the steam output was kind of strange. On a submarine, the steam used to propel the submarine dwarfs all the other steam loads. As a result, there's a throttleman who controls that.

Even though this simulation is simplified, it's not too bad. It does hide some of the really interesting aspects of a water cooled/moderated nuclear reactor. The most interesting thing is that water makes the reactor self-regulating because of its negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. I'll explain.

When a uranium-235 atom absorbs a stray neutron, it becomes unstable and splits. This releases more neutrons. Very few of these neutrons will be absorbed by surrounding uranium-235 atoms. This is a good thing. Most will escape the fuel, and some will bounce around in the surrounding water. This slows the neutrons down, and some of them will bounce back into the fuel to be absorbed for more fission reactions.

Let's say 1,000 fission reactions occur. If the result is that 800 neutrons from those fission reactions are absorbed by other uranium-235 atoms, you'll have 800 more fission reactions. The reactor is sub-critical as the reaction will not be self-sustaining.

If 1,000 fissions cause 1,200 neutrons to be absorbed and react, you'll have 1,200 resulting fission reactions. The reactor is super-critical as the number of fissions will increase.

If 1,000 fissions occur and the result is that 1,000 neutrons are absorbed and cause 1,000 more fission reactions, the reactor is critical. "The reactor is critical" means the number of fission reactions is self-sustaining and neither increasing nor decreasing.

How can we affect how many neutrons bounce back into the fuel? We can change the density of the water. It makes sense if you thing about it. The denser the water, the more likely neutrons will hit a water molecule and head back into the fuel.

How can we change the density of the water? We change the temperature of the water. If the water is colder, it is denser and the more likely neutrons will bounce back into the fuel.

How do we change the temperature of the water? We pull more/less heat of out it by using more/less steam.

Putting this all together, as steam demand goes up, more heat is pulled out of the water. This causes colder water to enter the reactor. Colder water will reflect more neutrons. More neutrons means more fission. More fission means more heat. More heat means warmer water and this will attenuate the increase in fission until an equilibrium is reached.

If you're creating too much power, the coolant temperature will increase and the power output will lower. If you're creating too little power, the coolant temperature will decrease and the power output will rise. That's why water is a great coolant/moderator: its negative temperature coefficient of reactivity.

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#43

Seems impossible to make it meltdown and explode. Shutting off the coolant just makes it automatically SCRAM. No incoming tsunamis threaten to swamp your diesel generators, no xenon pits to slowly climb out of. Booooring. ;-)

I am one of the programmers that worked on this port back in 2013, I can assure you that we (the programmers) also wanted to make a scenario where the plant would explode, however given it was designed to promote nuclear technology to school children (generally speaking), the people funding the project were not so keen to have nuclear technology shown off in that way!

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#46

This reminds me of a game idea I have. I want to build a game where players assemble various components into engines or systems. Building the required system is itself a bit of a puzzle, but then players must also demonstrate that they can control the system using sensors and switches, etc, despite failures of various components. Can you build a reactor? If something breaks, can you figure out what broke using the se…

Injured Engine is a similar game where you have to maintain a car engine and repair any part that breaks due to wear (but don't need to put it together): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injured_Engine

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#47

Seems impossible to make it meltdown and explode. Shutting off the coolant just makes it automatically SCRAM. No incoming tsunamis threaten to swamp your diesel generators, no xenon pits to slowly climb out of. Booooring. ;-)

Yeah at least let us put graphite tips on the control rods.

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#48
post #29

This is cool and takes me back to one of the first cool sim games I ever played as a child. Muse software's Three Mile Island for the Apple II. Mastery of this sim was an amazing feeling at the time. Manual https://archive.org/details/ThreeMileIslandAppleIIManual Game (Note view 7 save/reset state seems to be broken - avoid) https://archive.org/details/a2_Three_Mile_Island_Special_Ver...

Was that the one where you had to perform maintenance on the heat exchanger and coolant loops to prevent fouling?

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#49

The very first nuclear plant simulator I ever played with was a primitive text-based program, running on a DEC 11/780. To win the game you had to average a certain number of MWh over each turn (days). It seemed easy, just turn it on and let it run, but there was a catch. The game simulated normal fatigue, meaning that the longer it ran, the more likely something would go wrong. Also, the higher power you ran, the fas…

I didn't understand how nuclear reactors work until I was in grad school and even then I was aghast. You'd think if we could split an atom, we'd have a better way to make electricity than to make steam to turn a turbine. Of course, there are RTGs, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device

Re: Nuclear Reactor Simulator

#50

Seems impossible to make it meltdown and explode. Shutting off the coolant just makes it automatically SCRAM. No incoming tsunamis threaten to swamp your diesel generators, no xenon pits to slowly climb out of. Booooring. ;-)

My biggest beef with nuclear (and I've always said this) is its just so unsexy. No mushroom shapes, no passionate explosions followed by restful oblivion at the end. Its just reliable and faithful and keeps on pluggin' away. I like to live a little dangerously, and you should too!

Nuclear isn't just reliable and faithful and just keeps on plugging away- the modern reactor designs require extraordinary engineering to be reliable and require continuous maintanence and monitoring.
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