The development and application of digital refueling mock-up for China initiative accelerator driven system

The refueling procedure in China initiative Accelerator Driven System (CiADS) is extremely complex, since there are some complicated structures in the coupling system, and the liquid lead-bismuth coolant turns the dynamic refueling process into the opaque experience. Building a real-scale physical mock-up system for the simulation of refueling procedure had always been considered as an effective way. However, the refueling design of CiADS will demand frequent changes in the preliminary design stage, which makes the approach time-consuming, not economic, and lack of flexibility. Another reason making this method not appropriate is that the refueling procedure will always accompany by the radioactive process and the release of airborne radionuclide, which will cause the possibly potential risks to the workers in nuclear reactor building. Considering these situations, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMPCAS) has developed an immersive virtual reality based digital refueling mock-up for the project of CiADS. The proposed refueling simulation system has some attractive features, including the real-time visualization for the automatic refueling simulation, feedforward and feedback control to the digital refueling mock-up, the interference and collision detection in the simulation process, and the sequential optimization and reliability assessment method in the refueling procedure, which can meet the requirement of frequent changes, and evaluate the refueling scenario both quantitatively and qualitatively. [Display omitted] •The digital refueling mock-up for CiADS has been developed based on the immersive virtual reality platform.•The optimized logical structure for the automatic refueling simulation in real-time visualization has been designed.•The feedforward and feedback control to the digital refueling mock-up have been detailed in the refueling procedure.•Optimization and reliability assessment method can evaluate the refueling scenario both quantitatively and qualitatively.