Retrieving Fuel Elements by Pneumatic Suction in Pebble-Bed High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

Spent fuel storage system of pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled reactor needs to retrieve fuel elements and spent fuel elements from storage tank during fuel reloading condition and some other special status. This function is to be achieved by the negative pressure suction system. Research in depth is needed towards the negative pressure suction system design and experiment in order to reliably supply the system with enough suction capability and meanwhile prevent the fuel element from over-speed impact damage. A comprehensive experimental facility of negative pressure suction was built to investigate and verify the designed system. The facility mainly comprises a fuel canister, a suction tube, a tube feeder, a gas isolator, a Roots blower and pipelines. The negative pressure suction force was provided by the Roots blower and drove the fuel elements out of the canister through the tube. The Roots blower was driven by a frequency converter so that the suction flow rate could be adjusted as wanted. The dynamics model of spherical element in the tube was established. The pressure drop distribution of the negative pressure suction system was also calculated. Then the pressure drops and the sphere velocity were measured at different air flow rates. Based on the experimental results and calculation analysis, parameter requirements for the Roots pump were concluded. Therefore, fuel elements could be successfully retrieved without over-speed impact damage. These results provide useful experience for engineering design of negative pressure suction system in the spent fuel storage system.

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Filtration Technology Research of Graphite Dust Produced in Spent Fuel Transportation Process in HTR-PM

Volume 2: Plant Systems, Structures, Components, and Materials; Risk Assessments and Management ◽

10.1115/icone26-81022 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jinhua Wang ◽

Bing Wang ◽

Bin Wu ◽

Yue Li ◽

Haitao Wang

Keyword(s):

High Temperature ◽

Fuel Element ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Storage System ◽

Spent Fuel ◽

Graphite Matrix ◽

Fuel Storage ◽

Fuel Elements ◽

And Storage ◽

High Temperature Gas

With the continuous development of the nuclear power technology in the world, all countries in the world are becoming more and more interested in the inherent safety of nuclear power technology, while the research and development of the spherical bed type high temperature gas cooled reactor nuclear power technology in China has formally catered to this demand. As a major national science and technology project, since the construction of the high temperature gas cooled reactor demonstration project (HTR-PM) since 2012, the civil construction of the nuclear island has been basically completed, the installation of equipment has been carried out orderly, and many process systems have entered debugging and operation stage gradually. As an important auxiliary process system, fuel handling and storage system for online refueling of the pebble bed high temperature gas cooled reactor, plays an important role in relation to the stable operation of the reactor. The main functions of the fuel handling and storage system are loading the fresh fuel elements and unloading the spent fuel elements which has reached its target burnup continuously for reactor operation, the spent fuel elements would be discharged into the spent fuel canister firstly, when the spent fuel storage canister is full of spent fuel, the canister would be sealed through welding method, and then the spent fuel canister would be transferred and stored in the spent fuel storage silo with the ground crane system. The fuel element of the pebble bed high temperature gas cooled reactor is spherical fuel element with graphite matrix, the fuel elements will have friction and collision with the inner wall of the pipeline in transporting process, which will produce graphite dust, the graphite dust should be removed continuously though filtration method, so as not to affect the fuel elements transportation in pipeline. This article focus on the production mechanism and filtering method of the graphite dust in graphite matrix fuel element transporting process in pipeline, to study the graphite dust removal technology, and then we could provide theoretical guidance for the design and operation of the key system and equipment for HTR-PM.

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Electromagnetic Self-Locking Device for Air Cylinders in Spent Fuel Storage System of Pebble-Bed High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

Volume 2: Plant Systems, Construction, Structures and Components; Next Generation Reactors and Advanced Reactors ◽

10.1115/icone21-16342 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Bin Wu ◽

Jinhua Wang ◽

Yue Li ◽

Jiguo Liu

Keyword(s):

High Temperature ◽

Temperature Rise ◽

Storage System ◽

Compressed Air ◽

Maximum Temperature ◽

Spent Fuel ◽

Pebble Bed ◽

Spent Fuel Storage ◽

Fuel Storage ◽

High Temperature Gas

In the spent fuel storage system of pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled reactor, several air cylinders would be employed in complex machines, such as the spent fuel charging apparatus and the spent fuel canister crane. The cylinders were designed to actuate movements smoothly in radioactive environment. In order to lock them in safe position when the compressed air source is offline by accident, an electromagnetic self-locking device was designed. When power-off, the compressive spring would push out the lock plunger to enable self-lock. When power-on, the lock plunger would be withdrawn by the magnetic force of the coil to unlock the cylinder. In order to optimize the design more efficiently, numerical simulation was performed to optimize geometry parameters of the structure surrounding the working air gap so as to improve the performance of the device. A prototype was then fabricated. Combining the simulation results with experimental test, the actuating force characteristics of the device in locking and unlocking process was analyzed. The temperature rise when the device stays unlocked with power supply was also calculated and validated. The results showed that this electromagnetic self-locking device could realize the locking and unlocking functions effectively, and the maximum temperature rise also conforms the required limit. The as-fabricated device would help guarantee the fail-safe feature of the air cylinders of complex machines in compressed air outage.

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Design of the Spent Fuel Storage Well of HTR-PM

Volume 1: Operations and Maintenance, Aging Management and Plant Upgrades; Nuclear Fuel, Fuel Cycle, Reactor Physics and Transport Theory; Plant Systems, Structures, Components and Materials; I&C, Digital Controls, and Influence of Human Factors ◽

10.1115/icone24-60051 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jinhua Wang ◽

Bing Wang ◽

Bin Wu ◽

Yue Li

Keyword(s):

High Temperature ◽

Storage System ◽

Inherent Safety ◽

Storage Facility ◽

Spent Fuel ◽

Hot Air ◽

Spent Fuel Storage ◽

Fuel Storage ◽

Water Reactors ◽

Residual Heat

There are more than 400 reactors in operation to generate electricity in the world, most of them are pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors, which generate great amount of spent fuel every year. The residual heat power of the spent fuel just discharged from the reactor core is high, it is required to store the spent fuel in the spent fuel storage pool at the first 5 years after discharged from the reactor, and then the spent fuel could be moved to the interim storage facility for long term storage, or be moved to the factory for final treatment. In the accident of the Fukushima in 2011, the spent fuel pool ruptured, which led to the loss of coolant accident, it was very danger to the spent fuel assemblies stored in the pool. On the other hand, the spent fuel stored in the dry storage facility was safe in the whole process of earthquake and tsunami, which proved inherent safety of the spent fuel dry storage facility. In china, the High Temperature gas cooled Reactor (HTR) is developing for a long time in support of the government. At the first stage, HTR-10 with 10MW thermal power was designed and constructed in the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University, and then the High Temperature Reactor-Pebble bed Modules (HTR-PM) is designed to meet the commercial application, which is in constructing process in Shandong Province. HTR has some features of the generation four nuclear power plant, including inherent safety, avoiding nuclear proliferation, could generate high temperature industrial heat, and so on. Spherical fuel elements would be used as fuel in HTR-PM, there are many coating fuel particles separated in the fuel element. As the fuel is different for the HTR and the PWR, the fuel element would be discharged into the appropriate spent fuel canister, and the canister would be stored in the appropriate interim storage facility. As the residual power density is very low for the spent fuel of HTR, the spent fuel canister could be cooled with air ventilation without water cooling process. The advantage of air cooling mode is that it is no need to consider the residual heat removal depravation due to loss of coolant accident, so as to increase the inherent safety of the spent fuel storage system. This paper introduced the design, arrangement and safety characteristics of the spent fuel storage well of HTR-PM. The spent fuel storage wells have enough capacity to hold the total spent fuel canisters for the HTR-PM. The spent fuel storage facility includes several storage wells, cold intake cabin, hot air discharge cabin, heat shield cylinders, well lids and so on. The cold intake cabin links the inlets of all the wells, which would be used to import cold air to every well. The hot air discharge cabin links the outlets of all the wells, which would be used to gather heated air discharged from every well, the heated air would be discharged to the atmosphere through the ventilating pipe at the top of the hot air cabin. The design of the spent fuel storage well and the ventilating pipe could discharge the residual heat of the spent fuel canisters in the storage wells, which could ensure the operating safety of the spent fuel storage system.

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