Nairi Baghdasaryan

 

 

PhD Topic: Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear Fuel Performance in HTGR
Supervisor: prof. Tomasz Kozłowski (University of Illinois, USA & NCBJ, Poland)

Despite many safety advantages of HTGR, the first barrier integrity necessary to prevent fission product release is the TRISO particle. The purpose of the project is to address the structural, thermal, and other processes that can lead to TRISO coated particle failures, with developing/using appropriate predictive computational models. The most significant limitations of the current modeling are (1) incomplete representative coating property data as a function of irradiation conditions, and (2) insufficient understanding of the interactions between occurring phenomena as irradiation proceeds. Therefore, the proposed project needs to consider also uncertainty effects associated with different phenomena. Fission product buildup and release from the fuel particles during irradiation will also be modeled. In the scope of the project, TRISO particles both with UCO and UO2 type fuel kernel will be investigated, and used codes/models will be benchmarked against available international irradiation and safety test experiments.

Seminars and conference talks:

• Nairi Baghdasaryan, Review of Progress in Coated Fuel Particle Performance Analysis, National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), UZ3, Oct-2019, Otwock, Poland (seminar talk)
• N. Baghdasaryan, Shielding analysis of ANPP spent fuel transport cask, WWER regulatory forum, SEC NRC, 17-21 October, 2017, Moscow, (seminar talk)
• N. Baghdasaryan, Application of Burnup Credit Methodology in WWER spent fuel criticality safety analysis, GRS, February, 2017, Munich, Germany, (seminar talk)

Publications:

• Nairi Baghdasaryan and Tomasz Kozlowski (2020), “Review of Progress in Coated Fuel Particle Performance Analysis”, Nuclear Science and Engineering 194 (3), pp. 169-180
• S. Bznuni, N. Baghdasaryan, and A. Amirjanyan (2017), “Assessment of the Reactivity Bias and Bias Uncertainty Due to WWER-440 Fuel Depletion Uncertainties”, Proceedings of the YSU, Physical and Mathematical Sciences 1 (3), pp. 60-65
• S. Bznuni, N. Baghdasaryan, A. Amirjanyan, et al. (2017), “Development of bounding Burnup Axial Profiles for WWER-440 Spent Fuel Pool Burnup Credit Analysis”, Journal of Nuclear Science and Engineering 186 (1), pp. 98-102
• Nairi Baghdasaryan (2016), “Development of Optimal Fuel Loading Configurations for Armenian ANPP Spent Nuclear Fuel Transport Cask”, Proceedings of the YSU, Physical and Mathematical Sciences 2 (3), pp. 53-56

Courses:

• Nuclear reactors – Dr. O. Dorosh
• Fundamentals of reactor physics – prof. W. Gudowski
• Numerical methods in high temperature nuclear engineering – Dr. S. Potempski
• Reactor physics of HTR-s – prof. J. Cetnar