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Peer-Review Record

Kinetic Modeling and Analysis of Fuel Element Pneumatic Lifting System in Pebble Bed Reactors

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(3), 1486; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13031486
by Peng Shen 1, Runfeng Zhang 1, Zhigang Wang 2 and Jiangyi Chen 1,*
Reviewer 1: Anonymous
Reviewer 2:
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(3), 1486; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13031486
Submission received: 13 December 2022 / Revised: 16 January 2023 / Accepted: 18 January 2023 / Published: 23 January 2023

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Very good, comprehensive paper. The authors have deep knowledge of the topic. The paper contains all the necessary elements of the peer-review paper. The paper shows analytical and experimental work. The methodology applied is robust and sound. The conclusions are supported by the results. The new phenomena were clearly explained (difference at 16 m).

Formally, I recommend adding the section “Discussion”.

The plots showing a model of a reactor should have reference dimensions (Fig.2 and Fig. 6).

I recommend adding a more comprehensive introduction - one paragraph generally about HTR technology, pebble bed versus block type. Some good article about block type design, which could be cited: https://doi.org/10.2478/nuka-2021-0020

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript “Kinetic Modeling and Analysis of Fuel Element Transport Process in Pebble Bed Reactors” for publication in the Applied Sciences.We are very grateful for your valuable comments and have made changes.

Your suggestions are as follows.

  1. Add a section on "Discussion".
  2. Add reference dimensions to Figures 2 and 6.
  3. Add a description of HTR technology and pebble bed versus block type.

For Recommendation 1, we have added a "Discussion" section in lines 377-403 to discuss the factors and hazards of fuel element-piping collisions and to discuss solutions to the various hazards.

For recommendation 2, we have drawn the datum coordinate system in red on Figure 2 and marked the angle and diameter of the atypical bend with respect to the horizontal plane in blue. We have marked the overall height of the equipment (above ground plus underground) on Figure 6.

For recommendation 3,we cite several articles, including your recommended " Numerical modelling of modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors with thorium fuel". we added a description of the types of Generation IV nuclear reactors (lines 34 to 35 in the text). We added a second paragraph (lines 40 to 52 in the text) to introduce two subcategories on HTR, hexagonal prismatic and pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled reactors according, and analyze their main characteristics.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Well planned and experiment and well presented.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking your valuable time to review our articles and for your positive comments on our work. We wish you good health and success in your career.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

I believe this work should be presented in a specialized journal. Nevertheless, the paper can be improved if the following comments are considered:

1.      The abstract is weak and does not indicate the findings of this study well. The authors also should highlight the main findings obtained from the proposed technique.

2.      The list of references does not include any paper published in Applied Sciences. Is your work well targeted? Pay attention to the work bibliography!

3.      The bibliography may be improved, as there are 18 out of 23 references, i.e. over 78% older than 5 years. Also, there are 13 out of 23 references, i.e. over 56% older than 10 years.

4.      The structure of the manuscript is not mentioned in the introduction.

5.      All equations must be referenced.

6.      The reference for the data in Table 2 must be specified.

7.      The contrast of Fig. 11 could be higher for better clarity

8.      Future research directions should be suggested in the conclusions.

9.      This version needs professional proofreading to address the numerous grammatical errors and writing mechanics.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript “Kinetic Modeling and Analysis of Fuel Element Transport Process in Pebble Bed Reactors” for publication in the Applied Sciences.We are very grateful for your valuable comments and have made changes.

Your suggestions are as follows.

  1. The abstract is weak and does not indicate the findings of this study well. The authors also should highlight the main findings obtained from the proposed technique.

2.The list of references does not include any paper published in Applied Sciences. Is your work well targeted? Pay attention to the work bibliography!

3.The bibliography may be improved, as there are 18 out of 23 references, i.e. over 78% older than 5 years. Also, there are 13 out of 23 references, i.e. over 56% older than 10 years.

4.The structure of the manuscript is not mentioned in the introduction.

5.All equations must be referenced.

6.The reference for the data in Table 2 must be specified.

7.The contrast of Fig. 11 could be higher for better clarity.

8.Future research directions should be suggested in the conclusions.

Finally we are grateful to the reviewers for suggesting professional proofreaders to address the English language issues of this paper.

For Recommendation 1, We have revised the abstract section to present the new model developed in this paper, the findings obtained from the simulation analysis, and the final experimental approach and results.

For Recommendation 2 and 3, We rearranged the literature and added 9 recent papers, 4 of which are Applied science, and 4 old papers were deleted. The current percentage of literature within five years is 46% and 71% within ten years.

For Recommendation 4, We describe the structure of this paper in lines 91 to 98 of the text.

For Recommendation 5 and 6, We have elicited all formulas in the text in lines 109-110, 134, 139-140, 155-156, and 174.We also present in lines 180-186 of the text the sources of the parameters in Table 2.

For Recommendation 7, We added light sources behind the experimental platform and re-shot the images, which showed a significant improvement in contrast and clarity.

For Recommendation 8, We give a direction for future research at the end of the paper (lines 436-438) with multi-fuel spheres lifted in groups of strings.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

The responses to the Reviewer's comments have been checked. Generally speaking, the authors have presented a better revision and given some reasonable explanations.

This version still needs professional proofreading to address the grammatical errors and writing mechanics.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.


Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper shows the study of transport process of pebble fuel elements in the refueling machine of the pebble bed reactor. The study provides detailed movement behavior and the interaction of pebble ball with the refueling pipe. This result would contribute to the development of the HTGR, especially, the pebble bed reactor. I have several minor comments as follow:

1. Figure 5: What is the meaning of t/s? I recommend to palace all units inside the parentheses in all figures. For example, t (s); z (m)... 

2. Page 10, line 187, the diameter of the spherical element Ds is 60mm, and the inner diameter of the pipe Dp is 62mm:  Does author consider the swelling of the fuel pebble? Because the fuel pebble (Ds) starts from a very hot region while the refueling pipe (Dp) is placed outside the reactor at much lower temperature. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We have received your valuable suggestions and will respond to your questions one by one.

Question I

Thank you very much for your suggestion about the units of the images, we have modified the units of all the images.

Question Ⅱ

First of all, thank you very much for your suggestion about considering the effect of thermal expansion and contraction on the experiment. Since the fuel needs to go to the storage chamber after discharging from the core, then the reaction degree test, and finally to the lifting process,and with the airflow, it can make it cool down quickly.

Secondly, the main component of the fuel sphere is graphite, the diameter is 60mm, and the core temperature is about 800°. According to the graphite thermal expansion coefficient in the text [1], the maximum value in this temperature range is about 1.2×10-6 , The thermal expansion equation is as follows:

(公式请参考附件)
当燃料球从800度降低到20度时,热胀冷缩最大值为0.05616mm,小于1mm的制造误差,因此无需考虑。

最后,我们再次感谢您对本文的建议。

[1]赵璐,唐江,周敏,沈克.石墨热膨胀系数和导热系数研究进展[J].碳,2022,197.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

There are a few elementary problems with this paper that need to be addressed prior to further review and its consideration for acceptance by the journal:

1) The written English is not strong and requires a thorough review by an English language editor.

2) The format of the equations needs to be revised, particularly so that the variables as defined are in the same font in the text as used in the equations. Variables are italicised, parameters not.

3) I would move most of the mathematical description to a dedicated appendix and leave the body of the work to describe why the work has been done, how it has been done and what its implications are.

4) The work does not have much meaning without a detailed summary of the pebble bed reactor design on which it is based: a diagram of the whole design including the fuel transfer system is needed in the introduction of the work with a short description of how the reactor works.  Fig. 10 provides this but is too small to be of use, and it needs to be earlier in the work to inform the reader as to where this work is focused.

5) Some of the figures need to be improved, especially Fig. 13 which is not of sufficient resolution, and it needs to be understood that data in figures NEVER has the data joined: if a trend is needed then a fit is applied to the data, with appropriate statistical analysis.  Fig. 12 is too small (better in colour?) and the mixture of fonts used in Figs. 7 and 8 etc. needs to be resolved.

In short, this paper does not appear to have be subject to sufficient review prior to being submitted to the journal, and with the above issues resolved a proper review of its intellectual import can be started.  Reviewers should not be expected to provide this degree of elementary support.

 

Author Response

亲爱的审稿人,

感谢您给我们机会提交“卵石床反应堆中燃料元素传输过程的动力学建模和分析”手稿的修订草案,以便在应用科学中发表。我们感谢您投入时间和精力为我们的稿件提供反馈,并感谢您对我们论文的深刻见解和宝贵改进。

我们采纳了审稿人提出的大多数建议,并将逐一回答您的问题。所有页码均用于修订后的稿件文件。

问题一

关于您关于缺乏书面英语的问题,我们修改了全文。

问题二.

关于您关于公式格式的问题,我们修改了所有带有变量和参数的公式和文章,以满足变量是斜体的,参数不是斜体的,并使它们保持一致。

问题三.

我们感谢您建议创建一个专门的附录来描述数学关系,但鉴于本文中数学关系的简单性,将它们放在附录中可能会导致模型中缺乏逻辑一致性,因此我们这次没有添加附录。

问题四.

关于您关于是否需要圆石床反应器的详细设计摘要以及图10(原始)太小而无法表达卵石床反应堆原理的问题,首先我们删除了图10(原始)并添加了图9,11,13和14,并修改了小节3.3以总结卵石床反应堆的设计。其次,我们添加了图1和本文的第36至47行来描述卵石床反应器的原理。

问题五.

关于您关于图13、12、7和8(原文)需要修改的问题,首先,我们认为图13(原文)需要表达理论模型与实验结果之间的关系,因此将其修改为图17,并在文本的第341至355行中提供了简单的统计分析和原因分析。其次,我们放大了图12(原始图),但由于我们使用的单通道相机,我们没有修改颜色。最后,我们修改了图 7、8 和 9(原始)中的文本。我们以黄色突出显示了这些图像,以供您观看。

最后,我们再次感谢您对本文的建议。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Although the authors state that they have modified the written English, this is not the case.  Take the first paragraph, for example: 

 - 'put forward carbon neutron goals' you mean 'set',

 - 'low-cost, less polluting...' you mean 'low carbon'.

 - (actually there are papers that imply people are actually NOT any more concerned about nuclear energy after Fukushima than they were before, just Germany (political) and Japan, so this statement is wrong)

 - '(The) HTGR pebble bed reactor design'...has received increasing attention...'  Incidentally, it attracts a attention because its efficiency is postulated to be higher and therefore the electricity produced will be cheaper, but at higher temperatures, accident tolerant fuel is needed.

I think you have rushed your revision - there are missing spaces, additional spaces, redundant full-stops etc.  A reviewer is not about to put the prose right in a paper: we need to be able to read the paper unhindered by errors so we can assess its worth and suitability for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript “Kinetic Modeling and Analysis of Fuel Element Transport Process in Pebble Bed Reactors” for publication in the Applied Sciences.We are very sorry for the trouble caused by the written questions to your work, and we have listened carefully to your suggestions.

1.We have revised the relevant statements in the first paragraph about carbon neutrality targets and low cost and low pollution.

2.We fixed the false implication that people no longer care about nuclear energy in the first paragraph.

3.We fixed the misstatement in the first paragraph that HTGR was in the spotlight because of its security.

4.We have corrected the redundant periods and spaces in the text.

Finally we thank you again for your suggestions on the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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