Analysis of Small-Break LOCA at ACME Test Facility Using RELAP5/MOD3

Author(s):  
Xu Caihong ◽  
Shi Guobao ◽  
Fan Pu

The Advanced Core-cooling Mechanism Experiment (ACME) is conducted to investigate the performance of passive core-cooling system (PXS) for the advanced CAP1400 Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). The small-break LOCA experiments conducted at ACME integrated test facility are simulated with a SNERDI modified version of RE-LAP5/MOD3 code. Several typical SBLOCA test cases are simulated and one case (2 inch cold leg break) is presented in this paper. And the predicted results are compared with the test data to assess the performance of the modified code. The calculated results agree reasonably well with the test data.

Author(s):  
Zhanfei Qi ◽  
Sheng Zhu

CAP1400 Pressurized Water Reactor is developed by China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) based on the passive safety concept and advanced system design. The Advanced Core-cooling Mechanism Experiment (ACME) integral effect test facility, which was constructed at Tsinghua University, represents a 1/3-scale height of CAP1400 RCS and passive safety features. It is designed to simulate the performance of CAP1400 passive core cooling system in the small break loss of coolant accidents (SBLOCA) for design certification, safety review and safety analysis code development. The Long Term Core Cooling (LTCC) post-LOCA could be simulated by ACME as well. A series of test cases with various break sizes and locations with post-LOCA LTCC period were conducted in ACME facility. This paper describes the post-LOCA LTCC test conducted in ACME test facility. The LTCC phenomena in different cases are very similar. It’s found that the interval that switching from IRWST injection to sump recirculation has the least safety margin. However, it’s shown that the post-LOCA LTCC in ACME could be well maintained by passive core cooling system according to the test results even though the recirculation water level in ACME IRWST-2 is lower than the containment recircualtion level in CAP1400 conservatively.


Nukleonika ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Bury

Abstract The problem of hydrogen behavior in containment buildings of nuclear reactors belongs to thermal-hydraulic area. Taking into account the size of systems under consideration and, first of all, safety issues, such type of analyses cannot be done by means of full-scale experiments. Therefore, mathematical modeling and numerical simulations are widely used for these purposes. A lumped parameter approach based code HEPCAL has been elaborated in the Institute of Thermal Technology of the Silesian University of Technology for simulations of pressurized water reactor containment transient response. The VVER-440/213 and European pressurised water reactor (EPR) reactors containments are the subjects of analysis within the framework of this paper. Simulations have been realized for the loss-of-coolant accident scenarios with emergency core cooling system failure. These scenarios include core overheating and hydrogen generation. Passive autocatalytic recombiners installed for removal of hydrogen has been taken into account. The operational efficiency of the hydrogen removal system has been evaluated by comparing with an actual hydrogen concentration and flammability limit. This limit has been determined for the three-component mixture of air, steam and hydrogen. Some problems related to the lumped parameter approach application have been also identified.


Author(s):  
Hammad Aslam Bhatti ◽  
Zhangpeng Guo ◽  
Weiqian Zhuo ◽  
Shahroze Ahmed ◽  
Da Wang ◽  
...  

The coolant of emergency core cooling system (ECCS), for long-term core cooling (LTCC), comes from the containment sump under the loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). In the event of LOCA, within the containment of the pressurized water reactor (PWR), thermal insulation of piping and other materials in the vicinity of the break could be dislodged. A fraction of these dislodged insulation and other materials would be transported to the floor of the containment by coolant. Some of these debris might get through strainer and eventually accumulate over the suction sump screens of the emergency core cooling systems (ECCS). So, these debris like fibrous glass, fibrous wool, chemical precipitates and other particles cause pressure drop across the sump screen to increase, affecting the cooling water recirculation. As to address this safety issue, the downstream effect tests were performed over full-scale mock up fuel assembly. Sensitivity studies on pressure drop through LOCA-generated debris, deposited on fuel assembly, were performed to evaluate the effects of debris type and flowrate. Fibrous debris is the most crucial material in terms of causing pressure drop, with fibrous wool (FW) debris being more efficacious than fibrous glass (FG) debris.


Author(s):  
Shinya Miyata ◽  
Satoru Kamohara ◽  
Wataru Sakuma ◽  
Hiroaki Nishi

In typical pressurized water reactor (PWR), to cope with beyond design basis events such as station black out (SBO) or small break loss of coolant accident with safety injection system failure, injection from accumulator sustains core cooling by compensating for loss of coolant. Core cooling is sustained by single- or two-phase natural circulation or reflux condensation depending on primary coolant mass inventory. Behavior of the natural circulation in PWR has been investigated in the facilities such as Large Scale Test Facility (LSTF) which is a full-height and full-pressure and thermal-hydraulic simulator of typical four-loop PWR. Two steady-state natural circulation tests were conducted in LSTF at both high and low pressure. These two tests were conducted changing the primary mass inventory as a test parameter, while keeping the other parameters such as core power, steam generator (SG) pressure, and steam generator water level as they are. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) plans new natural circulation tests to cover wider range of core power and pressure as test-matrix (including the previous LSTF tests) to validate applicability of the model in wider range of core power and pressure conditions including the SBO conditions. In this paper, the previous LSTF natural circulation tests are reviewed and the new test plan will be described. Additionally, MHI also started a feasibility study to improve the steam generator tube and inlet/outlet plenum model using the M-RELAP5 code [4]. Newly developed model gives reasonable agreement with the previous LSTF tests and applies to the new test conditions. The feasibility findings will also be described in this paper.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Mascari ◽  
G. Vella ◽  
B. G. Woods ◽  
F. D'Auria

Today, considering the sustainability of the nuclear technology in the energy mix policy of developing and developed countries, the international community starts the development of new advanced reactor designs. In this framework, Oregon State University (OSU) has constructed, a system level test facility to examine natural circulation phenomena of importance to multi-application small light water reactor (MASLWR) design, a small modular pressurized water reactor (PWR), relying on natural circulation during both steady-state and transient operation. The target of this paper is to give a review of the main characteristics of the experimental facility, to analyse the main phenomena characterizing the tests already performed, the potential transients that could be investigated in the facility, and to describe the current IAEA International Collaborative Standard Problem that is being hosted at OSU and the experimental data will be collected at the OSU-MASLWR test facility. A summary of the best estimate thermal hydraulic system code analyses, already performed, to analyze the codes capability in predicting the phenomena typical of the MASLWR prototype, thermal hydraulically characterized in the OSU-MASLWR facility, is presented as well.


Author(s):  
Klaus Umminger ◽  
Simon Philipp Schollenberger ◽  
Se´bastien Cornille ◽  
Claire Agnoux ◽  
Delphine Quintin ◽  
...  

In the course of a small break LOCA in a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) the flow regime in the Reactor Cooling System (RCS) passes through a number of different phases and the filling level may decrease down to the point where the decay heat is transferred to the secondary side under Reflux-Condenser (RC) conditions. During RC, the steam formed in the core condensates in the Steam Generator (SG) U-tubes. For a limited range of break size and configuration, a continuous accumulation of condensate may cause the formation of boron-depleted slugs. If natural circulation reestablishes, as the RCS is refilled, boron-depleted slugs might be transported to the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) and to the core. To draw conclusions on the risk of boron dilution processes in SB-LOCA transients, two important issues, the limitation of slug size and the onset of Natural Circulation (NC) have to be assessed on the basis of experimental data, as system Thermal-Hydraulic codes are limited in their capability to replicate the complex physical phenomena involved. The OECD PKL III tests were performed at AREVA’s PKL test facility in Erlangen, Germany, to evaluate important phases of the boron dilution transient in PWRs. Several integral and separate effect tests were conducted, addressing the inherent boron dilution issue. The PKL III integral transient test runs provide sufficient data to state major conclusions on the formation and maximum possible size of the boron-depleted slugs, their boron concentration and their transport into the RPV with the restart of NC. Some of these conclusions can be applied to reactor scale. It has to be mentioned, that even though this paper is based on PKL test results obtained within the OECD PKL project, the conclusions of this paper reflect the views of the authors and not necessarily of all the members of the OECD PKL project.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey R. Kobelak ◽  
Jun Liao ◽  
Katsuhiro Ohkawa

During the reflood phase of a postulated large break loss-of-coolant accident (LBLOCA), the liquid head in the reactor vessel downcomer provides the driving force to reflood the core. Since the reflood rate is a function of the downcomer inventory, the calculation of the downcomer liquid inventory is critical in simulating the reflood phase of a postulated LBLOCA accident in a pressurized water reactor. Since the reactor coolant system pressure decreases rapidly after the onset of a LBLOCA transient, the walls surrounding the downcomer become superheated for the duration of the transient. The Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) downcomer effective water head test facility was designed to study boiling and steam-water interaction in the reactor vessel downcomer under prototypical reflood conditions. A number of tests were conducted at this facility with varying degrees of wall superheating (among other things) that cover the expected degree of superheating in a pressurized water reactor. The wall superheating achieved at the JAERI facility is greater than that of other large-scale facilities that are typically simulated to validate thermal-hydraulic system codes. WCOBRA/TRAC-TF2 is the thermal-hydraulic system code utilized in the FULL SPECTRUM™ LOCA (FSLOCA™) evaluation model (EM). The ability of the WCOBRA/TRAC-TF2 code to predict phenomena occurring in the reactor vessel downcomer during the reflood phase of a postulated LBLOCA has been previously validated. However, only limited wall superheating was present in the existing validation basis. As such, two experiments conducted at the JAERI downcomer effective water head test facility are simulated to provide additional information on the capability of WCOBRA/TRAC-TF2 to predict the liquid inventory in the reactor vessel downcomer during the reflood phase of a postulated LBLOCA. The code captured all the trends observed in the experimental data for both Run 115 and Run 121. The various collapsed liquid levels tended to be well-predicted or under-predicted by the code after the initial simulated accumulator injection period.


2003 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horst-Michael Prasser ◽  
Gerhard Grunwald ◽  
Thomas Höhne ◽  
Sören Kliem ◽  
Ulrich Rohde ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huang Jingyu ◽  
Pan Xinxin ◽  
Song Chunjing

The objective of the current work is to shed light on studying the air flow features of the air path which is part of the passive containment cooling system (PCS) in a pressurized water reactor design. A wind tunnel test using a 1:100 scaled model is established to study the characteristic called “wind-neutrality” of the air flow in the air path, which indicates that the environmental wind should not be beneficial or detrimental to the air flow for containment cooling. Test results show that the pressure distribution in the air path is uniform, and wind speeds, wind angles, and surroundings have little effect on air flow uniformity. These investigations show that it is possible to understand air flows in the air path of PCS with a scale wind tunnel test.


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