Experimental Investigation of Particle Decontamination Efficiency in a Single-Bubble by Pool Scrubbing

Author(s):  
Kota Fujiwara ◽  
Yuki Nakamura ◽  
Kohei Yoshida ◽  
Akiko Kaneko ◽  
Yutaka Abe

Abstract Nuclear power plant (NPP) safety has become a public issue since the Fukushima daiichi NPP accident. In order to evaluate the risks caused by severe accidents (SAs), it is very important to understand the on-site source term events. One of the important unsolved source term events is the decontamination efficiency of fission products (FPs) in the suppression chamber by pool scrubbing. Therefore, a mechanistic model to analyze the particle decontamination efficiency by pool scrubbing is highly regarded. Despite the demand, particle decontamination mechanism by pool scrubbing has never been understood due to the complexity of phenomena. In our experiment, we aim to develop a reliable mechanistic model to evaluate particle decontamination efficiency of pool scrubbing by conducting separate effect tests. As to obtain the fundamental process of particle decontamination from gas to liquid-phase, we focused on decontamination factor (DF) of particle from a single bubble. However, it is very difficult to calculate the initial particle concentration inside the bubble. Therefore, in our experiment, we developed a method to measure the internal particle concentration inside the bubble by combining image processing and particle measurement. By using the experimental results, we succeeded to obtain reasonable DF for glycerin particles and CsI particles as a simulant particle for FPs. From the experimental results, detailed particle decontamination efficiency for various submergence were measured. The results tend show that DF increase linearly as submergence increases which suggests that DF is constant on bubble rise region. Moreover, the fact that glycerin particle with larger particle diameter takes a higher value shows that particle diameter significantly affects DF.

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Muhammad Budi Setiawan ◽  
Pande Made Udiyani

One of the National Research Programs (PRN) in the energy sector of the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology for the period of 2020-2024 is small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power plant (NPP) assessment. The France’s Flexblue is a PWR-based SMR submerged reactor with a power of 160 MWe. The Flexblue reactor module was built on the ocean site and easily provided the supply of reactor modules, in accordance with the conditions of Indonesia as an archipelagic country. Therefore, it is necessary to know the release of fission products (source term), which is necessary for the study of the radiation safety of a nuclear reactor. This paper aims to examine the source term in normal operating conditions and abnormal normal operating conditions, as well as postulated accidents. Based on the Flexblue reactor core parameter data, the calculation of the reactor core inventory uses the ORIGEN2 software is previously evaluated. The source term calculation uses a mechanistic approach and a graded approach. The normal source term is calculated assuming the presence of impurities on the fuel plate, due to fabrication limitations. Meanwhile, the abnormal source term is postulated in the LOCA event. The core reactor inventory and source term is divided into 8 radionuclide groups which are Noble gasses group (Xe, Kr); Halogen (I); Akali Metal (Cs, Rb); Tellurium Group (Te, Sb, Sc); Barium-Strontium Group (Ba, Sr); Noble Metals (Ru, Rh, Pd, Mo, Tc, Co); Lanthanides group (La, Zr, Nd, Eu, Nb, Pm, Pr, Sm, Y, Cm, Am) and Cerium Group (Ce, Pu , Np).


Author(s):  
Laurent Cantrel ◽  
Thierry Albiol ◽  
Loïc Bosland ◽  
Juliette Colombani ◽  
Frédéric Cousin ◽  
...  

This paper deals with near past, ongoing and planned R&D works on fission products (FPs) behaviour in Reactor Cooling System (RCS), containment building and in Filtered Containment Venting Systems (FCVS) for severe accident (SA) conditions. For the last topic, in link with the Fukushima post-accident management and possible improvement of mitigation actions for such SA, the FCVS topic is again on the agenda (see Status Report on Filtered Containment Venting, OECD/NEA/CSNI, Report NEA/CSNI/R(2014)7, 2014.) with a large interest at the international scale. All the researches are collaborative works; the overall objective is to develop confident models to be implemented in ASTEC SA simulation software. After being initiated in the International Source Term Program (ISTP), researches devoted to the understanding of iodine transport through the RCS are still ongoing in the frame of a bilateral agreement between IRSN and EDF with promising results. In 2017, a synthesis report of the last 10 years of researches, which have combined experimental and fundamental works based on the use of theoretical chemistry tools, will be issued. For containment, the last advances are linked to the Source Term Evaluation and Mitigation (STEM) OECD/NEA project operated by IRSN. The objective of the STEM project was to improve the evaluation of Source Term (ST) for a SA on a nuclear power plant and to reduce uncertainties on specific phenomena dealing with the chemistry of two major fission products: iodine and ruthenium. More precisely, the STEM project provided additional knowledge and improvements for calculation tools in order to allow a more robust diagnosis and prognosis of radioactive releases in a SA. STEM data will be completed by a follow-up, called STEM2, to further the knowledge concerning some remaining issues and be closer to reactor conditions. Two additional programmes deal with FCVS issues: the MItigation of outside Releases in the Environment (MIRE) (2013–2019) French National Research Agency (NRA) programme and the Passive and Active Systems on Severe Accident source term Mitigation (PASSAM) (2013–2016) European project. For FCVS works, the efficiencies for trapping iodine with various FCVS, covering scrubbers and dry filters, are examined to get a clear view of their abilities in SA conditions. Another part, performed in collaboration with French universities (Lorraine and Lille 1), is focused on the enhancement of the performance of these filters with specific porous materials able to trap volatile iodine. For that, influence of zeolites materials parameters (nature of the counter-ions, structure, Si/Al ratio …) will be tested. New kind of porous materials constituted by Metal organic Frameworks (MOF) will also be looked at because they can constitute a promising way of trapping.


Author(s):  
K. Fujiwara ◽  
Y. Nakamura ◽  
A. Kaneko ◽  
Y. Abe

Abstract In severe accidents (SAs) of nuclear power plants, release of gas containing fission products (FPs) from the reactor vessel is thought to be a major issue. As to reduce the leakage of FPs into the environment, gas containing FPs are generally discharged though the wet well, and decontaminated by the transfer effect of FPs from the gas-phase to the liquid phase. This effect is called pool scrubbing. In SA analysis codes such as MELCOR, it is predicted in the model that FP particle motion inside a single bubble, created by the bubbly flow inside the wet well as a major factor in decontamination. However, there are almost no experimental data to investigate the decontamination behavior. Therefore, in our experiment, we used an advanced M/Z interferometer in order to visualize the particle decontamination behavior by adopting Maki prism and installing a high-speed camera. However, since the interferometer experiments are not specialized in non-stable phenomena and, there were several problems to be solved. The first problem was the phase extraction method in the FFT measurement. Since the FFT information of interference is complicated, the existing extract the phase information by hand from the overall amplitude. However, since the high-speed camera visualization provide a large amount of information, this is not a realistic solution in our experiment. Therefore, in order to obtain the threshold between phase information from the overall amplitude quantitatively, we applied the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) as to cluster the data. From the measurement results, we succeed in obtaining a threshold from the fitting results of GMM. The next problem was to obtain a fine image of the bubble interface in order to obtain the decontamination behavior in the bubble interface. However, the interference image contains a stripe on the background which makes it difficult to obtain the interface information. Therefore, in our experiment, we added a LED backlight coaxial to the laser of interferometer in order to obtain the backlight image on the bubble. The interference and backlight image are divided by wave length with a dichroic mirror. We have done a synchronous visualization of interference and backlight image. A fine mask to extract the interface of bubble is obtained from the calibration and comparison of two images. Using the visualization of continuous image of particle decontamination behavior from a single bubble, the decontamination behavior of particle from a single bubble was clearly obtained. Although the existing model predict the decontamination behavior as stable, the non-stationary decontamination of particle from the bubble has been measured.


2012 ◽  
Vol 482-484 ◽  
pp. 1115-1119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khurram Mehboob ◽  
Xin Rong Cao

During the severe accident in nuclear power plant (NPP), large amounts of fission products are released with accident progression, including In-vessel and Ex-vessel release. Thus, the Source term evaluation is essential for the probability risk assessment (PRA) and is still imperative for the licensing and operation of NPPs. Iodine is one of the most reactive fission products emitting in a large amount to containment and have a severe impact on health and sounding environment. Therefore, the iodine source term has been evaluated for 1000MW Reactor, by considering the TMI-2 as the reference reactor. The modeling and simulation of released radioactivity have been carried out by developing a MATLAB computer-based program. For post 1100 operation days, with the instantaneous release of radioactivity to the containment has been studied under LOCA. The dependency of radioiodine on ventilation exhaust rates has been studied in normal, emergency and isolation mode of containment. Moreover, the containment retention factor is also evaluated in said states of containment.


Author(s):  
Moon Soo Park ◽  
Chang-Sun Kang ◽  
Joo-Hyun Moon

Considering the current trend in applying the revised source term proposed by NUREG-1465 to the nuclear power plants in the U. S., it is expected that the revised source term will be applied to the Korean operating nuclear power plants in the near future, even though the exact time can not be estimated. To meet the future technical demands, it is necessary to prepare the technical system including the related regulatory requirements in advance. In this research, therefore, it is intended to develop the methodology to apply the revised source term to operating nuclear power plants in Korea. Several principles were established to develop the application methodologies. First, it is not necessary to modify the existing regulations about source term (i.e., any back-fitting to operating nuclear plants is not necessary). Second, if the pertinent margin of safety is guaranteed, the revised source term suggested by NUREG-1465 may be useful to full application. Finally, a part of revised source term could be selected to application based on the technical feasibility. As the results of this research, several methodologies to apply the revised source term to the Korean operating nuclear power plants have been developed, which include 1) the selective (or limited) application to use only some of all the characteristics of the revised source term, such as release timing of fission products and chemical form of radio-iodine and 2) the full application to use all the characteristics of the revised source term. The developed methodologies are actually applied to Ulchin 9&4 units and their application feasibilities are reviewed. The results of this research are used as either a manual in establishing the plan and the procedure for applying the revised source term to the domestic nuclear plant from the utility’s viewpoint; or a technical basis of revising the related regulations from the regulatory body’s viewpoint.


Author(s):  
Pingzhou Ming ◽  
Junjie Pan ◽  
Xiaolan Tu ◽  
Dong Liu ◽  
Hongxing Yu

Sub-channel thermal-hydraulics program named CORTH and assembly lattice calculation program named KYLIN2 have been developed in Nuclear Power Institute of China (NPIC). For the sake of promoting the computing efficiency of these programs and achieving the better description on fined parameters of reactor, the programs’ structure and details are interpreted. Then the characteristics of linear systems of these programs are analyzed. Based on the Generalized Minimal Residual (GMRES) method, different parallel schemes and implementations are considered. The experimental results show that calculation efficiencies of them are improved greatly compared with the serial situation.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Grebennikova ◽  
Abbie N Jones ◽  
Clint Alan Sharrad

Irradiated graphite waste management is one of the major challenges of nuclear power-plant decommissioning throughout the world and significantly in the UK, France and Russia where over 85 reactors employed...


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Taeseok Kim ◽  
Wonjun Choi ◽  
Joongoo Jeon ◽  
Nam Kyung Kim ◽  
Hoichul Jung ◽  
...  

During a hypothesized severe accident, a containment building is designed to act as a final barrier to prevent release of fission products to the environment in nuclear power plants. However, in a bypass scenario of steam generator tube rupture (SGTR), radioactive nuclides can be released to environment even if the containment is not ruptured. Thus, thorough mitigation strategies are needed to prevent such unfiltered release of the radioactive nuclides during SGTR accidents. To mitigate the consequence of the SGTR accident, this study was conducted to devise a conceptual approach of installing In-Containment Relief Valve (ICRV) from steam generator (SG) to the free space in the containment building and it was simulated by MELCOR code for numerical analysis. Simulation results show that the radioactive nuclides were not released to the environment in the ICRV case. However, the containment pressure increased more than the base case, which is a disadvantage of the ICRV. To minimize the negative effects of the ICRV, the ICRV linked to Reactor Drain Tank (RDT) and cavity flooding was performed. Because the overpressurization of containment is due to heat of ex-vessel corium, only cavity flooding was effective for depressurization. The conceptual design of the ICRV is effective in mitigating the SGTR accident.


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