8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

1/31

1

APPLICATION OF THE WESTINGHOUSE SMR DESIGN ON SHIPPING VESSELS

BY:

David Bechara, Daniel Faria and Odera Dim

SUPERVISOR: Prof Aghara Sukesh

2013

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

2/31

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction 3

2 Modeling in MCNP 4

3 Westinghouse SMR 5

4 Methodology 6

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

3/31

3

INTRODUCTION

The SMRS have continued to attract interest in the world of today as a viable means of

sustainable and economical power production. As ships become more applicable as a means of

transportation across the world, methods of improving the efficiency associated with operating them

has become a topic of importance.

The inspiration for this project comes from the fact many operational shipping vessels run off

diesel power. This natural resource is processed from crude oil which is limited in supply and will finally

get exhausted in many centuries to come. Also focusing on the downsides of using diesel power on

ships, the size and tonnage (500-4000 tons) of engine and machinery which are used to store the diesel

and to produce combustion power are enormous not to mention the noise they produce. Furthermore,

these engines in many cases dictate the life span of the shipping vessel which is typically about 20 years.

From the highlighted issues of operating ships off diesel it becomes obvious the need to provide

and alternate and sustainable means of power. One such source which can provide such amounts of

power is nuclear with the current designs of small modular reactors (SMR). Many of the proposed

designs of SMR are capable of generating between 45-300MWe which at the lowest end can satisfy the

electrical power requirements of many operational shipping vessels. Again besides the huge capital cost

of setting up an SMR, the running cost is minimal in comparison to the diesel power. Another advantage

of the SMR is the fact that many of the vendors advertise a 100 year life time for their design, even

though the life time of the reactor is typically decided by the NRC after the first 40 year license approval,

extensions can be given based on reactor performance and safety checks. One of these designs is the

Westinghouse which is a scale down of the AP1000 which is presently under construction in many sites

around the world. The Westinghouse SMR design will be the choice design for this project.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

4/31

4

MODELING IN MCNP

Modeling of nuclear reactor systems have being approached by neutronic code developers all

over the world in various ways. Generally, there are two broad classifications of transport codes. The

first class of code is referred to as the Deterministic transport code (e.g. VENTURE, PARCS etc.) while the

other is referred to as stochastic transport codes (e.g. MCNP). The question sometimes becomes, which

gives a better representation of the physical system being model. Other issues being raised include how

broad an application do these codes cover. On one hand deterministic codes are commonly argued to

be inaccurate because they require region averaged homogenous cross-sections which in most cases

have to be generated exterior to the code with approximations, stochastic codes on the other hand

require geometry modeling which can be a very tedious process especially with design of complex

reactor core models.

An MCNP input deck is made up of 3 paragraphs, the cell cards, surface cards and data cards.

1. Cell cards: This card is usual the first paragraph of the input deck. Here cells of specificgeometry (geometries geometries identified in surface card paragraph) are defined to contain a

particular material type from the data paragraph. The importance of neutrons in this cell is inputted in

this card.

2. Surface cards: In this paragraph, the surfaces that bound each cells are entered. This canbe done by filling out the parameters of a macrobody of using Boolean notation to relate planes.

3. Data cards: This is the last section where the number of neutron histories being ran,location of the fission source neutron and burn card if burnup calculations are required, are specified.

Also the materials along with temperature and compound corrections are entered in this section.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

5/31

5

THE WESTINGHOUSE SMR DESIGN

The Westinghouse SMR of all the available designs is the only one which presents game

changing and realistic arguments for their design. Their design is one of the few with a large power

production capability from a single unit. Also, the design of the core is based on the AP1000 PWR robust

17x17 assembly. This forms a positive argument for its vendors as the AP1000 technology has been

proven to work. It also has an integrated pressurizer and pumps which eliminates the moving parts and

decreases the likelihood of failure. Table 1 below summaries some of the key features of the SMR and

figure 1 is a diagram of the WSMR.

TABLE 1

SPECIFICATION DETAILS

Electric Power ~225MWeCore Design No operator intervention required for 7 days

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

6/31

6

Figure 1Westinghouse SMR Design

The SMR technology as a whole is a fairly brand new concept in the field of nuclear engineering

but has attracted so much attention all over the world. Of all the proposed designs, the mpower by

Babcock and Wilcox is the closest in the ladder to approval by the NRC. Nevertheless the Westinghouse

SMR is also getting a lot of positive reviews and is making it up this approval ladder pretty quickly

(Design certification application is expected in the 2ndquarter of 2014).

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

7/31

7

METHODOLOGY

Reactor design is not a simple process to carry out especially when taking into consideration the

safety aspect associated in design. For this project, the safety aspects to design of the WSMR will not be

treated in great detail. Again, information regarding the core design specifics for the WSMR is not

readily available in publications, but in many cases can be approximated pretty accurately by using

AP1000 data. The concern here will be validate the flux profiles at the given design power level for a

critical WSMR core and to estimate the amount of fuel that the reactor will burnup over its lifetime.

With this a comparison can be made on the economics of operating a ship with nuclear power

propulsion as against diesel.

To the design process a detailed BOL model of a critical WSMR core will be required. This will be

start out as defining a single pin of fuel and control rod each surrounded by water. Two types of

assemblies of 17x17 pin arrays will be modeled as pure fuel assemblies and controlled fuel assemblies.

With the two types of assemblies defined, the SMR core will be modeled with a water reflector and

reactor core vessel around it. The dimensions obtained from the Westinghouse AP1000 website on core

specific dimensions will be used to define the surface card section of the MCNP input deck.

The initial concentration of Boron for the WSMR will be approximated by a weighted

approximation to that of the AP1000 core volume. Another key aspect to design is to have properly

calculated densities for each component of the core, all densities used here are sited from material

manufacturers publication. Table 2 is a summary of the mass densities and calculated atom densities of

the material contained in the WSMR core.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

8/31

8

TABLE 2

Component Dimensions(cm)

Density(g/cm3)

Atomdensity(atom/b-cm)

Isotopes

Fuel Meat D: 0.8191 10.95 4.8870e-02 U

235

1.2367e-02U238 2.3199e-03

O 4.8875e-02

Fuel Clad I.D: 0.8191O.D: 0.8763

6.60 4.2580e-02 Zr93 4.1412e-02

Fe56 6.4983e-05

Nb93 7.6926e-04

Sn119 4.0079e-04

Control Meat D: 0.8191 10.20 5.6054e-02 Ag109 2.1710e-02In115 8.0119e-03

Cd112 2.7422e-03

ControlClad I.D: 0.8191O.D:0.8661

8.03 9.2137e-02 Fe56 5.5459e-02

Ch52 1.6739e-02

Ni59 6.6699e-03

C12 4.0297e-03

Si28 1.7270e-03

Mn55 1.7584e-03

Water L: 1.26B: 1.26

1.00 1.0040e-01 H 6.6911e-02

O 3.3456e-2

Boron L: 1.26B: 1.26

- B50 3.1859e-05

The above listed atomic densities will have both temperature correction and chemical

compound correction treatments applied in MCNP to define the material section of the input deck. With

the material card complete, the cell card which is actually the first section in the input deck can now be

concluded as well.

FLUX PROFILE ANALYSIS

The first step of this analysis will be to validate the flux profile of the WSMR at the advertised

operational power. Typical flux levels of an AP1000 are of the order 4.3x10

13

neutrons/cm

2

-s for thermal

and 1.5x1014neutrons/cm2-s for fast. The operational power of a reactor is related to the recoverable

energy per fission, fission cross-section, flux (thermal flux mostly for a thermal reactor) and volume of

the fuel. If the power and the fuel volume are decreased by the same order, the flux will remain

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

9/31

9

constant. This argument will provide a background to verify if this SMR design is truly feasible i.e. the

fluxes measured within the WSMR should be about the same as that of the AP1000. The argument is

further detailed in the expression below

For a particular fuel type the recoverable energy per fission and fission cross-section are

constants (K)

() ()

We will use the SMR power as 800MWth and that of the AP1000 as 3415MWth. The core

volume of the SMR is calculated to be 7.027x106cm3and that of the AP1000 as 3.100x107cm3.

From the computation above it can be deduced that the power density is about the same for the

WSMR and the AP1000 and hence the flux must be the same since the fuel properties in both reactors

are exactly alike. Figure 2 is a plot of the radial thermal and fast flux in the centre axial planar location of

the SMR. Figure 3 is the axial thermal and fast flux profile.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

10/31

10

Figure 2: Radial flux profile in a centre z-plane of the core

Figure 3: (a) 2-D Radial flux profile (b) Axial flux profile in a centre x-y plane of the core

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

11/31

11

GAMMA RADIATION ANALYSIS

Besides all the interesting aspects to design and reactor core analysis, a very key aspect to

reactor operation is that of exposure to gammas. Being that the SMR design under evaluation is meant

to be applied in a shipping vessel, its of key interest for the safety of the shipping crew to know how

much dose exposure is possible due to gamma production. The figures below show the flux profile at

various locations of the core. Figures 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) describe the normalized gamma flux profile.

Figure 4: (a) Radial gamma flux profile at top of core, (b) Radial gamma flux profile at centre of

core, (c) Radial gamma flux profile at bottom of core

BURNUP ANALYSIS

The treatment of burnup in this section will be done over the very first cycle (BOL). With the

uranium depletion obtained from this section, a projection of what mass of uranium will be required

over the lifetime of the SMR will be made. The burnup will be done in two ways.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

12/31

12

The first method will be to deplete the core over the 24 month duration with controls

completely inserted. Here the axial flux profile will remain a perfect sine curve. This is because relative

to the absolute core centre the effects of the control rods are uniform over the fuel length. This method

is not realistic as the reactor in reality cannot operate in a subcritical state.

Then the second method involves withdrawing the control rod at each depletion point to insert

positive reactivity to compensate for negative reactivity due to the buildup of xenon and fuel depletion

essentially keeping the reactor at a critical state. This is a realistic scenario but will lead to a bottom

peaking of the flux. Issue here is that to be able to withdraw controls the integral worth curve of the

core will be required which is not available at the moment. For this reason a trial and error technique

will be implemented to estimate the distance to which the control rod needs to be withdrawn to

override the reactivity change (essentially providing the control integral worth required over the 24

month operational cycle).

For the purpose of this project the assumption that will be made is that at each fuel cycle, when

one third of the core is being replaced, the new fuel will be of the same enrichment as the enrichment

at BOL of the core (4.45% enrichment). The rationale behind this will be justified in the next section.

Table 3 summarizes the results for burnup and k-effective results computed in MCNP6 and MCODE over

the first cycle with control rods completely inserted.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

13/31

13

TABLE 3

MCODE MCNP6.1

Time(days)

Burnup

(MWD/kgU)

K-

effective

Burnup

(GWD/MTU)

K-

effective

0 0 1.01515 0.00E+00 1.0145

1 0.018 1.0016 1.82E-02 1.001662 0.036 0.99793 3.63E-02 0.997163 0.054 0.9975 5.44E-02 1.000874 0.073 0.9981 7.26E-02 0.993315 0.091 0.99657 9.07E-02 0.9969935 0.635 0.9906 6.35E-01 0.9896765 1.098 0.98849 1.18E+00 0.9862195 1.724 0.98448 1.72E+00 0.98052125 2.268 0.9825 2.27E+00 0.98242155 2.821 0.97935 2.81E+00 0.97824185 3.357 0.97583 3.36E+00 0.97434215 3.901 0.97258 3.90E+00 0.97529

245 4.445 0.96924 4.45E+00 0.97035275 4.989 0.96619 4.99E+00 0.96416305 5.534 0.96267 5.54E+00 0.96277335 6.078 0.9589 6.08E+00 0.95645365 6.622 0.95572 6.62E+00 0.95576395 7.167 0.9523 7.17E+00 0.95236425 7.711 0.94917 7.71E+00 0.94985455 8.255 0.94559 8.26E+00 0.94718515 9.344 0.93881 9.35E+00 0.93649575 10.433 0.93118 1.04E+01 0.92663635 11.521 0.92511 1.15E+01 0.92673

695 12.61 0.91804 1.26E+01 0.92309755 13.698 0.91158 1.37E+01 0.91449

The results obtained from the burnup in both codes where ran for a million neutron histories.

This is the reason why there appears to be a slight variation in the k-effective results over the 24 month

cycle. Figure 4 plots the K-effective change over the cycle. To perform the constant reactivity burnup

with control withdrawn, the information above will be used. The process will not lead to an exactly

critical core but will result to a close to this. The method to achieving this will be to find the amount of

excess reactivity which will be inserted by withdrawing control rods at each depletion point that will

override the negative reactivity due to fuel burnup. Since from table 3 it is apparent that K- does not

vary much from critical over the 24 month cycle, the control rods will be withdrawn after every five (5)

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

14/31

14

depletion points. Also, the k-effective values from MCODE will be used to implement the solution

procedure. Table 4 summaries the procedure of achieving a critical system at each depletion point.

TABLE 4Time

(days)

K-effective

(Control fully inserted)

Blade

withdrawn(cm)

K-effective

(Controlwithdrawal)

Reactivity%K/K

(Control fullyinserted)

Reactivity %K/K

(Controlwithdrawal)

0 1.01515 0.000 1.01413 1.4293 1.39331 1.0016 10.000 1.00103 0.1657 0.10292 0.99793 10.000 0.99600 -0.2848 -0.40163 0.9975 10.000 0.99913 0.0869 -0.08714 0.9981 15.000 0.99631 -0.6735 -0.37045 0.99657 15.000 0.99620 -0.3019 -0.3814

35 0.9906 15.000 0.99071 -1.0438 -0.937765 0.98849 20.000 0.98797 -1.3983 -1.217695 0.98448 20.000 0.98328 -1.9867 -1.7000

125 0.9825 20.000 0.98403 -1.7895 -1.6229155 0.97935 30.000 0.98453 -2.2244 -1.5713185 0.97583 30.000 0.98182 -2.6336 -1.8517215 0.97258 30.000 0.98134 -2.5336 -1.9015245 0.96924 50.000 1.00385 -3.0556 0.3835275 0.96619 50.000 1.00477 -3.7172 0.4747305 0.96267 50.000 1.00210 -3.8670 0.2095335 0.9589 60.000 1.00738 -4.5533 0.7325365 0.95572 60.000 1.00398 -4.6266 0.3964395 0.9523 60.000 0.99948 -5.0023 -0.0520425 0.94917 70.000 1.00661 -5.2798 0.6567455 0.94559 70.000 1.00021 -5.5766 0.0210515 0.93881 70.000 0.99481 -6.7817 -0.5217575 0.93118 150.000 1.00944 -7.9179 0.9352635 0.92511 150.000 1.00138 -7.9063 0.1378695 0.91804 150.000 0.99674 -8.3318 -0.3271

755 0.91158 150.000 0.99180 -9.3506 -0.8268

Figures 5(a), 5(b), 5(c) and 5(d) describe the various parameters as the fuel is depleted in the

core for both a case of control withdrawal and fully inserted control using both MCNP6 and MCODE.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

15/31

15

Figure 4:(a) Reactivity change over time, (b) K-effective change over time, (c) Mass of Uranium

used over time (d) Burnup change over time.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

16/31

16

FABRICATION OF NUCLEAR FUEL COST ANALYSIS

The cost of fabricating nuclear fuel is a function of many parameters which include the price of

SWU (PS), price of conversion (PC), price of Uranium (PU), price of fabrication (PF) and SWU factor (SF).

While most of all the parameters listed above are typically constant, the SF is the most important

because it varies with the enrichment levels required. Figure 5, gives a function which relates the cost of

fabrication to the enrichment levels required.

Figure 5:Fabrication cost against enrichment levels

From the figure 5, it is obvious that very little alteration in the enrichment level required the

price of Uranium changes significantly. As mentioned in the earlier section, it is better to set the cost of

fabrication to correspond to the highest level of enrichment required for operating the reactor. This will

serve as a more appropriate boundary to compare against the cost of diesel fuel.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

17/31

17

WRTSIL ANALYSIS

In the merchant shipping world, there is no diesel engine neither larger nor environmentally

friendly then the WrtsilRT-flex96C / RTA96C. This engine is state of the art, and is found in much of

the larger merchant ships such as the Mrsk E-class line of boats.

The Wrtsil engine is rated for a power output at 80.08MW at 127 rpm (72.24MW at 102 rpm).

Combining this information with that found in table 5 would allow us to be able to estimate a fuel

consumption rate in gallons per hour. This figure would then be used to determine the cost of fuel

consumption on an hourly basis.

Table 5BSFC of Wrtsil RT-flex96C / RTA96C

The following table represents the series of calculations take to achieve an hourly cost of fuel at

different power levels for the diesel Wrtsil engine. This engine running at nearly peak power will

consume around $6.62 K/hour in fuel at standard tuning. Essentially, the cost of running these engines

hourly is more than what it would to pay 10 full time technicians weekly salary at 16 $/hour.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

18/31

18

Table 6Fuel Cost CalculationsStandard tuningRPM %RPMmax kW (max) Cons. Rate

(g/kWh)Liters/hour gal/hour USD/GAL cost/hour

5 19.7 15,763.78 168.000 2,468.80 777.35 1.703 $1,324.16

50 39.4 31,527.56 168.000 4,925.87 1,554.69 1.703 $2,648.3175 59.1 47,291.34 168.000 7,388.80 2,332.04 1.703 $3,972.47100 78.7 63,055.12 168.000 9,851.73 3,109.38 1.703 $5,296.63125 98.4 78,818.90 168.000 12,314.66 3,886.73 1.703 $6,620.79

This cost of $6.62 K/hour in fuel is a little misleading as well, as the Wrtsil engine

will not always run at max capacity. Running at full power is not economical in a ship such as this, just as

always redlining your vehicle isnt optimal in fuel savings as well. This allows us to make the assumption

that typical steady state operations will run at about half of the maximum power output, roughly 63

RPM with a power output of 39.7MW.

Another assumption is that full power is only achieved during times of need, such as

when there are weather disturbances, or when the ship is accelerating from stationary position. Another

option in cost savings is to cut speed near ports and larger populated areas near land.

SHIP SCHEDULING

Wrtsil estimates that annual fuel costs should be based on 6000 hours running time per year.

This assumption allows preliminary estimations of a yearly fuel cost around $50million per boat.

The Maersk shipping line has shipping stops and day to day shipment expectations; This allows

us to be able to test these 6000 hours running time with actual figures, and speeds of shipping possible.

The idea with nuclear boats is that we run more efficiently, rely less on power and speed limitations and

hopefully achieve speeds upwards past 40 knots.

The Wrtsil engine discussed is rated to go at top speed of 31 knots with its highest kW setting,

where this maxes out at 80MWth. The SMR we are implementing allows us room to crank up to 800

MWth, this is 10x the power of the current engine. With the nuclear powered shipment vessel there is

also room for improvement in load tonnage and still achieving higher speeds the Wrtsil engine.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

19/31

19

The following table was generated using current ship schedules and sea routes estimations.

Table 7Trans-Atlantic Route USA to Europe for Maersk APL Qatar (red indicates alternate route)

Voyage Star End DISTANCE (km) APL QATAR

023E

Max

Time

(days)

Dock Time

(days)

Travel

Distance

(km)

Travel Time

(days)

Miami 0 16 - 16 Dec 0 0 0 0

Miami Jacksonville 673 17 - 17 Dec 1 0.1645201 673 0.83547989

Jacksonville Savannah 260 18 - 19 Dec 1 0.6772292 260 0.32277083

Savannah Charleston 169 19 - 20 Dec 1 0.790199 169 0.20980104

Charleston Newark 1160 21 - 22 Dec 2 0.5599455 1160 1.44005449

Newark Antwerp 6073 - - - 0 0

Newark Bremerhaven 6370 01 - 03 Jan 11 3.0921146 6370 7.90788544

Antwerp Bremerhaven 590 - - - 0 0

Bremerhaven Rotterdam 488 04 - 05 Jan 3 2.394184 488 0.60581603

Rotterdam Le Havre 481 05 - 06 Jan 1 0.402874 481 0.59712604

Rotterdam Miami 7636.6 - - - 0 0

Le Havre Miami 7272 10 0.9723481 7272 9.02765195

Table 8USA to Middle East for Maersk Detroit (red indicates alternate routes)

Voyage Start End DISTANCE

(km)

MAERSK DETROIT

1401

Max Travel

Time (days)

Needed

Travel Time

(days)

Distance

(km)

Dock

Days

Charleston 0.00 - 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Charleston Savannah 169.00 - 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Savannah Norfolk 905.40 - 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Norfolk Newark 528.90 06 - 07 Dec 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Newark Port Tangier

Mediterrane

5881.00 15 - 16 Dec 9.00 7.30 5881.00 1.70

Port Tangier

Mediterrane

Suez Canal 3705.40 19 - 20 Dec 4.00 4.60 3705.40 0.60

Newark Algeciras 5918.70 - 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Algeciras Suez Canal 3677.20 - 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Suez Canal Jebel Ali Dubai 5391.10 27 - 28 Dec 8.00 6.69 5391.10 1.31

Jebel Ali Dubai Port Qasim 1383.90 30 - 30 Dec 3.00 1.72 1383.90 1.28

Port Qasim Pipavav 743.80 01 - 01 Jan 2.00 0.92 743.80 1.08

Pipavav Jawaharlal

Nehru

300.10 02 - 03 Jan 1.00 0.37 300.10 0.63

Tables like this are found in the master excel sheet, and expand over 60 different shipping schedules for 3

different routes. Compiling all that data into one table was not an easy task. It required foresight enough to be

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

20/31

20

able to accurately understand what needed to be found and man hours to get the numbers working. Ultimately a

table 9 was generated with the combined average distance traveled by ship from totaled data.

Table 9Compiled Scheduling Data

Route Distance (km) distance/ship ships Travel Time(days)

Dock Time(days)

Total Time(days)

DockPercentage

TA1 7,587,76.40 329,90.28 23.00 40.95 14.52 55.48 0.26

MECL1 1,419,121.60 59,130.07 24.00 71.68 22.34 94.02 0.24

OC1 1,221,574.40 76,348.40 16.00 94.78 42.84 137.63 0.31

FUEL COSTS

Bunker Fuel is usually purchased by the tonne. The price per tonne has been climbing since 2004

at a rapid pace. In 2004 the price per tonne was around $170, where prices in 2008 are around $470 per

tonne. Thats nearly triple the price, in a 4 year span. However oil prices since 2008 have shown a

greater stability in prices where he price now is only $30 per barrel more than it was in 2009 ($60/barrel

to $90/barrel).

Comparing these two rates of growth allows us to venture out a planning horizon of 20 years for

expected cost of oil increases. This is shown in figure 8.

Figure 6Bunker Fuel Prices per tonne from various ports. Green bar indicates the mean price for each

year.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

21/31

21

Figure 7Cost of Crude oil per Barrel 2009-2014

Figure 8Projected Fuel Costs over next 20 years

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

22/31

22

The cost per barrel is to see an estimated doubling in cost over the next decade. However this

estimation ignores the obvious weekly, monthly and seasonal fluctuations and consolidates these

fluctuations to an average yearly price. Using the figures 7 and 8 one can see that on a typical year the

cost of a barrel per gallon fluctuates within $10 of a median price, this now gives us a range of possible

prices in the future for the cost of goods transportation.

FUEL TYPE

The Wrtsil engine runs off of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO). HFO is also commonly known as Bunker

Fuel. This is a type of residual fuel where separations into a final product are typically done on board of

the ship. Bunker fuel has high sulfur content at 4.5 weight percent of fuel. This is an outstanding

number, especially when compared to automotive fuel limitations of .001 weight percent sulfur allowed

in the fuel.

U235 BURNUP

Using some basic nuclear physics hand calculations one can estimate the amount of U235 is

burned up during operations of our SMR. Using the estimated burn up and consumptions of U235

presents the avenue of doing a cost savings analysis between the SMR and Wrtsil engine fuel

consumption.

About 85% of energy released in fission is recoverable for U235 which releases a bit more than

200 MeV/fission.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

23/31

23

Table 10Emitted and Recoverable energies for U235 Fission (Lamarsh)

For a reactor operating at thermal power the burnup rate can be estimated for the entire

reactor by using the following formula.

(1)

This simplifies to the burnup rate shown in equation 2.

(2)There is also fissile nuclei that are consumed in radiative capture in addition to those captured

purely for burn up. This is called the consumption rate which is found by solving for . The following

equations show the consumption rate and the technique needed to solve for .

(4)

(3)

For U235, the thermal value of is 0.169. This shows that the isotope of U235 is consumed at

the rate of 1.23 g/day per MW of operations in a thermal reactor. (Lamarsh) This allows the following

table to be generated which estimates the consumption and burn up rate of our SMR at two different

power levels at a full 24 hour operation.

Table 11 SMR U235 Burnup and Consumption Rates

200 MWth 800 MWth

Burnup Rate (gU235) 210.69 g/day 842.77 g/dayConsumption Rate (gU235) 246.30 g/day 985.20 g/day

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

24/31

24

Fuel Expenditures

Combining the previous sections allows us to present a table of fuel savings. These were done

on a yearly basis and a NPV was found for each of the routes based off of pure fuel savings alone. The

following table shows estimated costs for the power requirements assuming an uprate while docked to

full power in order to sell power back to the city of port as an off shore power station. These costs were

generated with the assistance of figure 5, where the cost of U235 was estimated at $1,500/kg at our

specific fuel enrichment.

Table 12Estimated Yearly U235 Fuel cost per ship SMR

BURNUP CONSUMPTION

ROUTE TRAVELg/year

DOCKg/year

Totalkg/year

FUEL COST$/ship/year

TRAVELg/year

DOCKg/year

Totalkg/year

FUEL COST$/ship/year

TA1 8628 12239 20.87 $ 32,136 10087 14308 24.40 $ 37,567

MECL1 15102 18831 33.93 $ 52,255 17654 22013 39.67 $ 61,086

OC1 19969 36107 56.08 $ 86,354 23344 42209 65.55 $ 100,948

The following table outlines the same routes as the table about but is the diesel engine analysis.

Table 13 Estimate yearly Fuel Oil per Diesel Engine

Route g/kWh kWyear kg/ship barrel/ship FUEL COST$/ship/year

TA1 168 51,111,838 8,586,789 60010 $ 5,700,978

MECL1 168 89,456,675 15,028,721 105031 $ 9,977,934

OC1 168 118,286,576 19,872,145 138880 $ 13,193,601

Now these values are quite different, where the SMR has 150 times the fuel savings compared

to the diesel engine. There were additional steps taken to estimate the life NPV for these 3 routes. First

the demand of oil correlating to potential doubling in prices over 20 years, as well as an IRR of 8% to

bring future values back to the present valued conditions. This leads to a table such as the following:

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

25/31

25

Table 14NPV for Different Routes for SMR vs Diesel Engine

TA1 MECL1 OC1 TA1 MECL1 OC1

$/bar (PV) $/ship $/ship $/ship $/ship $/ship $/ship

0.00 95.00 5.70E+06 9.98E+06 1.32E+07 3.76E+04 6.11E+04 1.01E+05

1.00 97.85 5.44E+06 9.52E+06 1.26E+07 3.48E+04 5.66E+04 9.35E+04

2.00 100.79 5.19E+06 9.08E+06 1.20E+07 3.22E+04 5.24E+04 8.65E+04

3.00 103.81 4.95E+06 8.66E+06 1.14E+07 2.98E+04 4.85E+04 8.01E+04

4.00 106.92 4.72E+06 8.25E+06 1.09E+07 2.76E+04 4.49E+04 7.42E+04

5.00 110.13 4.50E+06 7.87E+06 1.04E+07 2.56E+04 4.16E+04 6.87E+04

6.00 113.43 4.29E+06 7.51E+06 9.93E+06 2.37E+04 3.85E+04 6.36E+04

7.00 116.84 4.09E+06 7.16E+06 9.47E+06 2.19E+04 3.56E+04 5.89E+04

8.00 120.34 3.90E+06 6.83E+06 9.03E+06 2.03E+04 3.30E+04 5.45E+04

9.00 123.95 3.72E+06 6.51E+06 8.61E+06 1.88E+04 3.06E+04 5.05E+04

10.00 127.67 3.55E+06 6.21E+06 8.21E+06 1.74E+04 2.83E+04 4.68E+04

11.00 131.50 3.38E+06 5.92E+06 7.83E+06 1.61E+04 2.62E+04 4.33E+04

12.00 135.45 3.23E+06 5.65E+06 7.47E+06 1.49E+04 2.43E+04 4.01E+04

13.00 139.51 3.08E+06 5.39E+06 7.12E+06 1.38E+04 2.25E+04 3.71E+04

14.00 143.70 2.94E+06 5.14E+06 6.79E+06 1.28E+04 2.08E+04 3.44E+04

15.00 148.01 2.80E+06 4.90E+06 6.48E+06 1.18E+04 1.93E+04 3.18E+04

16.00 152.45 2.67E+06 4.67E+06 6.18E+06 1.10E+04 1.78E+04 2.95E+04

17.00 157.02 2.55E+06 4.46E+06 5.89E+06 1.02E+04 1.65E+04 2.73E+04

18.00 161.73 2.43E+06 4.25E+06 5.62E+06 9.40E+03 1.53E+04 2.53E+04

19.00 166.58 2.32E+06 4.05E+06 5.36E+06 8.70E+03 1.42E+04 2.34E+04

20.00 171.58 2.21E+06 3.87E+06 5.11E+06 8.06E+03 1.31E+04 2.17E+04

NPV $ 77,633,312 $ 35,874,941 $ 179,664,419 $ 406,405 $ 660,837 $ 1,092,073

The averaged value of the fuel savings is at a NPV of $130.4 million.

SMR CONVERSION ANALYSIS

Shipping Vessel: Emma Maersk

The shipping vessel we will be outfitting with a Westinghouse SMR reactor is the Emma Maersk, a

vessel normally containing one of the worlds largest diesel units, the Wrtsil RT, capable of producing

109,000 HP (80.08 MWt @ 127 RPM) with a capacity of 11,000+ TEUs.To conserve on fuel and

emissions, shipping vessels limit their cruising speed to about 25 mile/hour, usually so engines are

working at approximately 50% of their maximum power capacity, it is in this range they operate most

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

26/31

26

efficiently. For our Wrtsil RTpowered Maersk, the normal operating power is typically around 52.4

MW of electricity so we will need to produce approximately this much power with the SMR and an

appropriate conversion system as well.

Energy Conversion System

The SMR being utilized has a capacity for 800 MWth, but this energy cannot be directly used for

propulsion of ship. The diesel engines provided electric power to the ships propulsion system via two 9

MW electric motors, but the nuclear fueled system produces thermal energy which will need to be

converted to electricity before it can be used by the same system for ship propulsion. Many different

approaches can be taken to accomplish this, one being the production of electricity in a simple cycle

indirect gas turbine and another choice is to use a direct steam turbine.

Figure: left- schematic of a simple indirect gas turbine cycle, right- schematic of a direct steam turbine cycle

Our reactor produces steam at an outlet temperature of about 600 K. this allows us to employ a steam

turbine directly because it can tolerate temperatures at

this range. Using a gas turbine would necessitate a heat exchanger to transfer the heat from the steam into

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

27/31

27

a gas that would then flow into the turbine, but they are usually more compact and lighter than steam

turbines.

This system is most efficient when the reactor and turbine are as close together as possible to minimize

heat loss in pipes. Typically an efficiency of 95% is associated with a required power transfer and the

turbines themselves are assumed to be approximately

30% efficient at converting heat into electricity. When

considering a system will be utilizing a gas turbine and a

heat exchanger it will have an overall

energy efficiency of 28.5%. Under this format the nuclear SMR would need to function at an operating

power of 184 MWth, rounded up to 200 MWth for good measure, still well below its maximum power

limit of 800 MWth. Using a steam turbine while give an over-all energy efficiency of 30%, requiring only

175 MWth of power from the nuclear reactor for normal operation, slightly less than a gas turbine.

After thermal energy is converted into electricity, the Emma Maersks propulsion system and waste

heat recovery system can then be utilized with the nuclear system without any further major changes.

Many vessels utilize systems that incorporate heat sinks/regenerators, turbines in series/parallel, and other

equipment to boost efficiency as well as lower emissions.

Although the SMR is smaller than the diesel engine itself, when the necessary support systems are

accounted for like turbines, shielding, etc, the space and weight requirements for a nuclear powered vessel

are likely greater than for a diesel powered vessel. This might decrease the carrying capacity of the vessel

slightly, a cost offset by reduced fuel costs.

Equipment Costs

There are various types of turbines and arrangements for converting heat into energy. For our analysis,

we estimated costs for a heavy-frame simple cycle gas turbine (based off of 40 MW gas turbine) and an

Reactor Propulsion Sys. *100%

Gas Turbine 0.30

Heat Exchanger 0.95

overall efficiency: 0.285

Max Required Power(MWt)= 184

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

28/31

28

average cost for steam turbines based off of a range of 400-1500 $/kW given by WADE (world alliance

of decentralized energy). From this info a gas turbine would cost approximately 58 million dollars and an

additional 8 to 9 million for the required heat exchanger, giving a total install cost of about 66 million

dollars. A steam turbine would cost on average 57 million dollars. With a lower maintenance cost than

gas turbines and no heat exchanger installation or maintenance required, it is a preferred choice over the

gas turbines. These numbers are calculated for turbines with a capacity to produce 60 MW, an

overestimation of the 52.4 MW we will use during normal operation. To produce power for cities when

docked the vessels will require 4 of these turbines to convert reactor thermal energy into up to 200 MW of

electricity, resulting in an approximate installation cost of 228 million dollars.

Shipping Routes

The two major advantages of a nuclear powered vessel would be its range and speed. Due to the

Westinghouse SMRs 2 year fuel cycle the shipping vessel will only need to dock when necessary such as

to exchange cargo with a port, or perform ship/reactor maintenance, and restock on supplies as needed.

Also reactors will produce high power at relatively good efficiency, so high velocity travel can be

maintained throughout trading routes, reducing travel times and increasing profits.

Most international trade in modern day is shipped over water, about 13.3 million TEUs in May 2008.

All of this trade occurs through a multitude of hubs; usually shipping ports, along established trade routes

via many fleets of variously sized and designed shipping vessels. The optimization of a fleet of shipping

vessels is commonly referred to as an FDP, or fleet deployment problem. A planning horizon is used to

schedule appropriate shipping vessels to follow optimized routes, these are optimized to minimize cost

and meet customer needs. A typical example of a shipping route is the AsiaEurope trade route shown

below.

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

29/31

29

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

30/31

30

REFERENCES1. Nicholas Tsoulfanidis, The Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Quantum Publishing Services, Bellingham,

WA, USA, 2013.

2. AK Steel Publication, 304/304L Stainless Steel data sheet, 9227 Centre Pointe Drive,West Chester, OH 45069.

3. Thomas Kindred, Westinghouse SMR, Westinghouse Electric Company, 2012.4. Terry L. Schulz,AP1000 Nuclear Power Plants, 20085. Umicore Technical Material Publication, Neutron Absorber AgInCd 80/15/5.6. Lamarsh, John R., and Anthony John Baratta. "Interaction of Radiation with Matter."

Introduction to Nuclear Engineering. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001. 88-90. Print.

7. L. Paparusso, M.E. Ricotti and M, Sumini, World status of the SMR projects, polytechnicof Milan, 2011.

8. American Bureau of Shipping. "Notes on Heavy Fuel Oil." (n.d.): 1-68. Web. 19 Dec.2013.

9. Wettstein, Rudolf, and David Brown. "Derating: A Solution for High Fuel Savings andLower Emissions." Wartsila Switzerland Ltd. Winterhur(2008): 1-11. Web.

10. Pearce, Fred. "How 16 Ships Create as Much Pollution as All the Cars in the World." DailyMail. Daily Mail Online, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013. .

11. "Wrtsil RT-flex96C." Wrtsil RT-Flex96C. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013..

12.Bruce, George J. Eyres, David J. (2012). Ship Construction (7th Edition). Elsevier. Onlineversion available at:

http://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpSCE00013/ship-construction-7th

13.Wang S. , Meng Q..Liner shipping network design with deadlines: Computers and OperationsResearch, Volume 41, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 140-149

Available at:

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-

00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974

14.State of Shipping Market due to high fuel costs slow steaminghttp://www.shippingtribune.com/?p=4248

15.Kjetil Fagerholt,Lars Magnus Hvattum,Trond A. V. Johnsen,Jarl Eirik Korsvik .Routing and scheduling in project shipping

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10479-011-0888-1

16.Shahin Gelareh a,Stefan Nickel b, David Pisinger a. Liner shipping hub network design in acompetitive environment

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1366554510000578/1-s2.0-S1366554510000578-main.pdf?_tid=6ba5f5da-

66a0-11e3-837d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1387232677_d92f45cd8889631d22d673b7ef845309

http://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpSCE00013/ship-construction-7thhttp://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974http://www.shippingtribune.com/?p=4248http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Kjetil+Fagerholt%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Kjetil+Fagerholt%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Lars+Magnus+Hvattum%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Trond+A.+V.+Johnsen%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Jarl+Eirik+Korsvik%22http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10479-011-0888-1http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1366554510000578/1-s2.0-S1366554510000578-main.pdf?_tid=6ba5f5da-66a0-11e3-837d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1387232677_d92f45cd8889631d22d673b7ef845309http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1366554510000578/1-s2.0-S1366554510000578-main.pdf?_tid=6ba5f5da-66a0-11e3-837d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1387232677_d92f45cd8889631d22d673b7ef845309http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1366554510000578/1-s2.0-S1366554510000578-main.pdf?_tid=6ba5f5da-66a0-11e3-837d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1387232677_d92f45cd8889631d22d673b7ef845309http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1366554510000578/1-s2.0-S1366554510000578-main.pdf?_tid=6ba5f5da-66a0-11e3-837d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1387232677_d92f45cd8889631d22d673b7ef845309http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1366554510000578/1-s2.0-S1366554510000578-main.pdf?_tid=6ba5f5da-66a0-11e3-837d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1387232677_d92f45cd8889631d22d673b7ef845309http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10479-011-0888-1http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Jarl+Eirik+Korsvik%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Trond+A.+V.+Johnsen%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Lars+Magnus+Hvattum%22http://link.springer.com/search?facet-author=%22Kjetil+Fagerholt%22http://www.shippingtribune.com/?p=4248http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0305054813002207/1-s2.0-S0305054813002207-main.pdf?_tid=54fc69d4-6693-11e3-961f-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1387227052_804377fdc34ec777f56f6cf828255974http://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpSCE00013/ship-construction-7th

8/13/2019 Project Repor t01172014

31/31