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In general, tall buildings, some of which are termed as &ldquo / skyscrapers&rdquo / , are among the typical and almost unavoidable features of the metropolitan cities. There is a competititive race of constructing higher and higher buildings since the birth of the infamous Home Insurance Building in Chicago which is still considered to be the pioneer of the modern tall buildings. Recently, an efficient service core design is strongly needed and inquired with the increase in height and capacity of tall buildings. Such needs and demands are primarily due to the circulation volume of occupants since height has an adverse effect on the size and capacity of the service core. This thesis investigates the features of service cores that play an important role in the planning considerations of tall building design, and their effect on architectural, structural and sustainable design. Within this context, a classification of service cores based on their location in architectural design is proposed.

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Perhaps surprisingly, the largest experience in operating nuclear power plants has been in nuclear naval propulsion, particularly submarines. This accumulated experience may become the basis of a proposed new generation of compact nuclear power plant designs. In an effort to de-carbonise commercial freight shipping, there is growing interest in the possibility of using nuclear propulsion systems. Reactor cores for such an application would need to be fundamentally different from land-based power generation systems, which require regular refueling, and from reactors used in military submarines, as the fuel used could not conceivably be as highly enriched. Nuclear-powered propulsion would allow ships to operate with low fuel costs, long refueling intervals, and minimal emissions; however, currently such systems remain largely confined to military vessels. This research project undertakes computational modeling of possible soluble-boron-free (SBF) reactor core designs for this application, with a view to informing design decisions in terms of choices of fuel composition, materials, core geometry and layout. Computational modeling using appropriate reactor physics (e.g. WIMS, MONK, Serpent and PANTHER), thermal-hydraulics etc. codes (e.g. COBRA-EN) is used for this project. With an emphasis on reactor physics, this study investigates possible fuel assembly and core designs for civil marine propulsion applications. In particular, it explores the feasibility of using uranium/thorium-rich fuel in a compact, long-life reactor and seek optimal choices and designs of the fuel composition, reactivity control, assembly geometry, and core loading in order to meet the operational needs of a marine propulsion reactor. In this reactor physics and 3D coupled neutronics/thermal-hydraulics study, we attempt to design a civil marine reactor core that fulfills the objective of providing at least 15 effective full-power-years (EFPY) life at 333 MWth. In order to unleash the benefit of thorium in a long life core, the micro-heterogeneous ThO2-UO2 duplex fuel is well-positioned to be utilized in our proposed civil marine core. Unfortunately, A limited number of studies of duplex fuel are available in the public domain, but its use has never been examined in the context of a SBF environment for long-life small modular rector (SMR) core. Therefore, we assumed micro-heterogeneous ThO2-UO2 duplex fuel for our proposed marine core in order to explore its capability. For the proposed civil marine propulsion core design, this study uses 18% U-235 enriched micro-heterogeneous ThO2-UO2 duplex fuel. To provide a basis for comparison we also evaluate the performance of homogeneously mixed 15% U-235 enriched all-UO2 fuel. This research also attempts to design a high power density core with 14 EFPY while satisfying the neutronic and thermal-hydraulics safety constraints. A core with an average power density of 100 MW/m3 has been successfully designed while obtaining a core life of 14 years. The average core power density for this core is increased by ∼50% compared to the reference core design (63 MW/m3 and is equivalent to Sizewell B PWR (101.6 MW/m3 which means capital costs could be significantly reduced and the economic attractiveness of the marine core commensurately improved. In addition, similar to the standard SMR core, a reference core with a power density of 63 MW/m3 has been successfully designed while obtaining a core life of ∼16 years. One of the most important points that can be drawn from these studies is that a duplex fuel lattice needs less burnable absorber than uranium-only fuel to achieve the same poison performance. The higher initial reactivity suppression and relatively smaller reactivity swing of the duplex can make the task of reactivity control through BP design in a thorium-rich core easier. It is also apparent that control rods have greater worth in a duplex core, reducing the control material requirements and thus potentially the cost of the rods. This research also analyzed the feasibility of using thorium-based duplex fuel in different cases and environments to observe whether this fuel consistently exhibit superior performance compared to the UO2 core in both the assembly and whole-core levels. The duplex fuel/core consistently exhibits superior performance in consideration of all the neutronic and TH constraints specified. It can therefore be concluded from this study that the superior performance of the thorium-based micro-heterogeneous ThO2-UO2 duplex fuel provides enhanced confidence that this fuel can be reliably used in high power density and long-life SBF marine propulsion core systems, offering neutronic advantages compared to the all-UO2 fuel. Last, but not least, considering all these factors, duplex fuel can potentially open the avenue for low-enriched uranium (LEU) SBF cores with different configurations. Motivated by growing environmental concerns and anticipated economic pressures, the overall goal of this study is to examine the technological feasibility of expanding the use of nuclear propulsion to civilian maritime shipping and to identify and propose promising candidate core designs.

Dans l’étude de tout nouveau réacteur nucléaire, la conception de son cœur est une étape décisive. Or il s’agit d’un problème complexe, qui couple fortement la neutronique, la thermomécanique du combustible et la thermo-hydraulique. Actuellement cette conception se fait par longues itérations successives entre les différentes spécialités. Afin d’optimiser de façon plus globale et complète la conception d’un cœur, une nouvelle démarche appelée FARM (FAst Reactor Methodology) a été développée dans le cadre de la thèse. Elle consiste à établir des modèles simplifiés de neutronique, mécanique et thermo-hydraulique, sous forme analytique ou d’interpolation de calculs de codes de référence, puis à les coupler, de manière à pré-dimensionner automatiquement un cœur à partir de variables d’optimisation. Une fois ce modèle établi, on peut explorer et optimiser directement de nombreux cœurs, à partir d’algorithmes génétiques de façon à améliorer leurs performances (inventaire Plutonium en cycle, …) et leur sûreté (estimateurs de sûreté pour accidents protégés et non-protégés). Une réflexion a également due être menée pour déterminer les performances d’un cœur, ainsi que la façon de prendre en compte la sûreté. Cette nouvelle approche a été utilisée pour optimiser la conception de trois concepts de cœurs de Réacteur à Neutrons Rapides refroidi au Gaz (RNR-G). Tout d’abord, la conception du RNR-G à combustible carbure et à aiguilles en SiC a pu être optimisée. Les résultats ont permis d’une part de démontrer que le cœur de référence issu de la méthode itérative était optimal (c'est-à-dire sur le front de Pareto). D’autre part, l’optimisation a également permis de proposer de nombreux autres cœurs, où en dégradant un estimateur de sûreté ou une performance (sur lesquels des marges étaient disponibles), on améliore les autres performances. Une évolution de ce concept utilisant la nouvelle technologie du buffer, a également été modélisée dans FARM et optimisée. FARM a ainsi permis de proposer les premières images de cœur GFR carbure gainé en SiC utilisant la technologie buffer, et d’estimer leurs performances. Les résultats obtenus montrent que cette innovation permet d’atteindre des cœurs beaucoup plus performants et/ou beaucoup plus « sûrs » (plusieurs profils de cœurs étant proposés). Une troisième application de FARM a été réalisée sur un concept de GFR carbure gainé en Vanadium, où là aussi FARM a proposé les premières images de cœur. Toutefois les grandes incertitudes en jeu ne permettent pas véritablement de conclure sur les performances de ce concept, qui semble prometteur.Ainsi, la faisabilité d’une optimisation globale, couplant les différentes physiques d’un cœur de réacteur nucléaire a été démontrée. Si la méthode ainsi obtenue (FARM) est moins précise que la méthode classique, elle permet d’explorer et d’optimiser beaucoup plus rapidement (en quelques semaines au lieu de quelques mois) un grand nombre de cœurs et est parfaitement adaptée pour l’étape de préconception des cœurs de réacteurs ; d’autres études détaillées permettant ensuite d’affiner l’image de cœur retenue. / In the study of any new nuclear reactor, the design of the core is an important step. However designing and optimising a reactor core is quite complex as it involves neutronics, thermal-hydraulics and fuel thermomechanics and usually design of such a system is achieved through an iterative process, involving several different disciplines. In order to solve quickly such a multi-disciplinary system, while observing the appropriate constraints, a new approach has been developed to optimise both the core performance (in-cycle Pu inventory, fuel burn-up, etc…) and the core safety characteristics (safety estimators) of a Fast Neutron Reactor. This new approach, called FARM (FAst Reactor Methodology) uses analytical models and interpolations (Metamodels) from CEA reference codes for neutronics, thermal-hydraulics and fuel behaviour, which are coupled to automatically design a core based on several optimization variables. This global core model is then linked to a genetic algorithm and used to explore and optimise new core designs with improved performance. Consideration has also been given to which parameters can be best used to define the core performance and how safety can be taken into account.This new approach has been used to optimize the design of three concepts of Gas cooled Fast Reactor (GFR). For the first one, using a SiC/SiCf-cladded carbide-fuelled helium-bonded pin, the results demonstrate that the CEA reference core obtained with the traditional iterative method was an optimal core, but among many other possibilities (that is to say on the Pareto front). The optimization also found several other cores which exhibit some improved features at the expense of other safety or performance estimators. An evolution of this concept using a “buffer”, a new technology being developed at CEA, has hence been introduced in FARM. The FARM optimisation produced several core designs using this technology, and estimated their performance. The results obtained show that this innovative feature leads to much higher performing and/or safer cores. The FARM approach has also been applied to a GFR concept using a vanadium cladding. However the large uncertainties involved do not really enable one to evaluate the performance of this promising concept.In summary, the feasibility of a global multi-disciplinary optimization has been demonstrated. Although the resulting method (FARM) is less accurate than the conventional method, it allows fast optimization and permits a large number of cores to be explored quickly, and is ideally suited for the preliminary designs studies before further refinement of the core design.