Experimental Study of the Effect of Hydrogen Inflow on Passive Core Cooling System With Natural Circulation Flow

Isolation Condenser (IC) is one of the passive core cooling systems with natural circulation flow, which is effective for safety measures against station black out. Once core uncover occurs, hydrogen generated in the core affects operating condition of ICs. To use ICs as an important safety measure not only for transient conditions but also for accident conditions, robustness of ICs against hydrogen inflow must be understood well. In this study, experiments with high pressure steam were conducted using experimental setup simulating IC, where helium was injected to simulate hydrogen effects. When the pressure in an accumulator increased high enough, natural circulation flow generated in the experimental loop. After the long-term operation, the pressure and the natural circulation flow rate achieved nearly constant. The pressure at quasi-steady state increased with increasing the helium injection amount. The pressure difference in a section including outlet side of a vertical pipe was slightly increased when helium was injected which may have indicated that the helium accumulated in the section and caused increment of the pressure loss. The startup pressure of the IC simulator also increased when helium was injected, where the driving force by the water head difference also decreased. Though long-term operations were performed after helium injection, the effect of injected helium on operating conditions of the IC remained for quasi-steady state conditions.