scholarly journals CFD Analysis of Passive Autocatalytic Recombiner

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
B. Gera ◽  
P. K. Sharma ◽  
R. K. Singh ◽  
K. K. Vaze

In water-cooled nuclear power reactors, significant quantities of hydrogen could be produced following a postulated loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) along with nonavailability of emergency core cooling system (ECCS). Passive autocatalytic recombiners (PAR) are implemented in the containment of water-cooled power reactors to mitigate the risk of hydrogen combustion. In the presence of hydrogen with available oxygen, a catalytic reaction occurs spontaneously at the catalyst surfaces below conventional ignition concentration limits and temperature and even in presence of steam. Heat of reaction produces natural convection flow through the enclosure and promotes mixing in the containment. For the assessment of the PAR performance in terms of maximum temperature of catalyst surface and outlet hydrogen concentration an in-house 3D CFD model has been developed. The code has been used to study the mechanism of catalytic recombination and has been tested for two literature-quoted experiments.

Author(s):  
Mohammad Sotoudeh ◽  
Kamran Sepanloo

Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) originally designed by German KWU and then modified by Russian companies is approaching commissioning. In this paper, the reliability of Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) of the new design is compared with the older one using both deterministic and probabilistic methods. The reliability of both systems is calculated in case of occurrence of Large Loss of Coolant Accident (Large LOCA). The new Russian design is based on the original KWU Convoy design and the applied modifications have improved its reliability. To perform the reliability analysis the event tree/fault tree method is used and the calculations are done by IAEA computer code PSAPACK. The results show that the applied modifications such as, increase of redundancy from 4 × 50% to 4 × 100%, change of cool down route, fuel storage pool cooling in all four trains have reduced the ECCS unavailability from 5.9 E−4 to 1.7 E−4. Furthermore, based on the results it is shown that both designs comply well with the IAEA recommendations on Probabilistic Safety Criteria (PSC) and INSAG-3 requirements.


Author(s):  
Alexander D. Vasiliev

The PARAMETER-SF2 test conditions simulated a severe LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident) nuclear power plant sequence in which the overheated up to 1700÷2300K core would be reflooded from the top and the bottom in occasion of ECCS (Emergency Core Cooling System) recovery. The test was successfully conducted at the NPO “LUTCH”, Podolsk, Russia, in April 3, 2007 and was the second of two experiments to be performed in the frame of ISTC 3194 Project. PARAMETER facility of NPO “LUTCH”, Podolsk, is designed for studies of the VVER fuel assemblies behavior under conditions simulating design basis, beyond design basis and severe accidents. After the maximum cladding temperature of 1750K was reached in the bundle during PARAMETER-SF2 test, the top flooding (flow rate 40g/s) was begun and later approximately in 30 s the bottom flooding (flow rate 100g/s) was initiated. Two-phase (water and steam) flow determined the fuel assembly cooling conditions. The thermal hydraulic and SFD (Severe Fuel Damage) best estimate numerical complex SOCRAT 2.1 was used for the calculation of PARAMETER-SF2 experiment. Thermal hydraulics in PARAMETER-SF2 experiment played very important role and its adequate modeling is important for the thermal analysis. The results obtained by the complex SOCRAT 2.1 were compared with experimental data concerning different aspects of thermal hydraulics behavior including convective and radiative heat transfer in the bundle and the CCFL (counter-current flooding limitation) phenomenon during the reflood. The temperature experimental data were found to be in a good agreement with calculated results. It is indicative of the adequacy of modeling the complicated thermo-hydraulic behavior in the PARAMETER-SF2 test.


Author(s):  
Alexander Vasiliev ◽  
Juri Stuckert

This study aims to (1) use the thermal hydraulic and severe fuel damage (SFD) best-estimate computer modeling code SOCRAT/V3 for post-test calculation of QUENCH-LOCA-1 experiment and (2) estimate the SOCRAT code quality of modeling. The new QUENCH-LOCA bundle tests with different cladding materials will simulate a representative scenario for a loss-of-coolant-accident (LOCA) nuclear power plant (NPP) accident sequence in which the overheated (up to 1050°C) reactor core would be reflooded from the bottom by the emergency core cooling system (ECCS). The test QUENCH-LOCA-1 was successfully performed at the KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany, on February 2, 2012, and was the first test for this series after the commissioning test QUENCH-LOCA-0 conducted earlier. The SOCRAT/V3-calculated results describing thermal hydraulic, hydrogen generation, and thermomechanical behavior including rods ballooning and burst are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data. The results demonstrate the SOCRAT code’s ability for realistic calculation of complicated LOCA scenarios.


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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anhar Riza Antariksawan ◽  
Surip Widodo ◽  
Hendro Tjahjono

A postulated loss of coolant accident (LOCA) shall be analyzed to assure the safety of a research reactor. The analysis of such accident could be performed using best estimate thermal-hydraulic codes, such as RELAP5. This study focuses on analysis of LOCA in TRIGA-2000 due to pipe and beam tube break. The objective is to understand the effect of break size and the actuating time of the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) on the accident consequences and to assess the safety of the reactor. The analysis is performed using RELAP/SCDAPSIM codes. Three different break size and actuating time were studied. The results confirmed that the larger break size, the faster coolant blow down. But, the siphon break holes could prevent the core from risk of dry out due to siphoning effect in case of pipe break. In case of beam tube rupture, the ECCS is able to delay the fuel temperature increased where the late actuation of the ECCS could delay longer. It could be concluded that the safety of the reactor is kept during LOCA throughout the duration time studied. However, to assure the integrity of the fuel for the long term, the cooling system after ECCS last should be considered.  Keywords: safety analysis, LOCA, TRIGA, RELAP5 STUDI PARAMETRIK LOCA DI TRIGA-2000 MENGGUNAKAN RELAP5/SCDAP. Kecelakaan kehilangan air pendingin (LOCA) harus dianalisis untuk menjamin keselamatan suatu reaktor riset. Analisis LOCA dapat dilakukan menggunakan perhitungan best-estimate seperti RELAP5. Penelitian ini menekankan pada analisis LOCA di TRIGA-2000 akibat pecahnya pipa dan tabung berkas. Tujuan penelitian adalah memahami efek ukuran kebocoran dan waktu aktuasi sistem pendingin teras darurat (ECCS) pada sekuensi kejadian dan mengkaji keselamatan reaktor. Analisis dilakukan menggunakan program perhitungan RELAP/SCDAPSIM. Tiga ukuran kebocoran dan waktu aktuasi ECCS berbeda dipilih sebagai parameter dalam studi ini.  Hasil perhitungan mengonfirmasi bahwa semakin besar ukuran kebocoran, semakin cepat pengosongan tangki reaktor. Lubang siphon breaker dapat mencegah air terkuras dalam hal kebocoran pada pipa. Sedang dalam hal kebocoran pada beam tube, ECCS mampu memperlambat kenaikan temperatur bahan bakar. Dari studi ini dapat disimpulkan bahwa keselamatan reaktor dapat terjaga pada kejadian LOCA, namun pendinginan jangka panjang perlu dipertimbangkan untuk menjaga integritas bahan bakar.Kata kunci: analisis keselamatan, LOCA, TRIGA, RELAP5


2020 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 53-60
Author(s):  
Pronob Deb Nath ◽  
Kazi Mostafijur Rahman ◽  
Md. Abdullah Al Bari

This paper evaluates the thermal hydraulic behavior of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) when subjected to the event of Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) in any channel surrounding the core. The accidental break in a nuclear reactor may occur to circulation pipe in the main coolant system in a form of small fracture or equivalent double-ended rupture of largest pipe connected to primary circuit line resulting potential threat to other systems, causing pressure difference between internal parts, unwanted core shut down, explosion and radioactivity release into environment. In this computational study, LOCA for generation III+ VVER-1200 reactor has been carried out for arbitrary break at cold leg section with and without Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS). PCTRAN, a thermal hydraulic model-based software developed using real data and computational approach incorporating reactor physics and control system was employed in this study. The software enables to test the consequences related to reactor core operations by monitoring different operating variables in the system control bar. Two types of analysis were performed -500% area break at cold leg pipe due to small break LOCA caused by malfunction of the system with and without availability of ECCS. Thermal hydraulic parameters like, coolant dynamics, heat transfer, reactor pressure, critical heat flux, temperature distribution in different sections of reactor core have also been investigated in the simulation. The flow in the reactor cooling system, steam generators steam with feed-water flow, coolant steam flow through leak level of water in different section, power distribution in core and turbine were plotted to analyze their behavior during the operations. The simulation showed that, LOCA with unavailability of Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) resulted in core meltdown and release of radioactivity after a specific time.


Author(s):  
Yukiko Kawabata ◽  
Masayoshi Matsuura ◽  
Shizuka Hirako ◽  
Takashi Hoshi

The Japan Atomic Power Company has initiative in developing the DMS concept as a 400MWe-class light water reactor. The main features of the DMS relative to overcoming the scale demerit are the miniaturization and simplification of systems and equipment, integrated modulation of construction, standardization of equipment layouts and effective use of proven technology. The decrease in primary containment vessel (PCV) height is achieved by reducing the active fuel length of the DMS core, which is about two meters compared with 3.7 meters in the conventional BWR. The short active fuel length reduces the drop in core pressure, and overcomes the natural circulation system. And by using the lower steam velocity in the upper plenum in the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), we can adopt a free surface separation (FSS) system. The FSS eliminates the need for a separator and thus helps minimize the RPV and PCV sizes. In order to improve safety efficiency, developing an Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) for the DMS was considered. The ECCS configuration in the DMS was examined to achieve core coverage and economic efficiency from the following. 1: Eliminating high-pressure injection systems. 2: Adopting passive safety-related systems. 3: Optimizing distribution for the systems and power source for the ECCS. In this way the configuration of the ECCS for the DMS was established, providing the same level of safety as the ABWR and the passive systems. Based on the results of Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) analysis, core cover can be achieved by this configuration. Therefore, the plant concept was found to offer both economic efficiency and safety.


Author(s):  
Kwang-Chu Kim ◽  
Man-Heung Park ◽  
Hag-Ki Youm ◽  
Sun-Ki Lee ◽  
Tae-Ryong Kim ◽  
...  

A numerical study is performed to estimate on an unsteady thermal stratification phenomenon in the Shutdown Cooling System (SCS) piping branched off the Reactor Coolant System (RCS) piping of Nuclear Power Plant. In the results, turbulent penetration reaches to the 1st isolation valve. At 500sec, the maximum temperature difference between top and bottom inner wall in piping is observed at the starting point of horizontal piping passing elbow. The temperature of coolant in the rear side of the 1st isolation valve disk is very slowly increased and the inflection point in temperature difference curve for time is observed at 2700sec. At the beginning of turbulent penetration from RCS piping, the fast inflow generates the higher temperature for the inner wall than the outer wall in the SCS piping. In the case the hot-leg injection piping and the drain piping are connected to the SCS piping, the effect of thermal stratification in the SCS piping is decreased due to an increase of heat loss compared with no connection case. The hot-leg injection piping affected by turbulent penetration from the SCS piping has a severe temperature difference that exceeds criterion temperature stated in reference. But the drain piping located in the rear compared with the hot-leg injection piping shows a tiny temperature difference. In a viewpoint of designer, for the purpose of decreasing the thermal stratification effect, it is necessary to increase the length of vertical piping in the SCS piping, and to move the position of the hot-leg injection piping backward.


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):  
Caihong Xu ◽  
Guobao Shi ◽  
Kemei Cao ◽  
Xiaoyu Cai ◽  
Zhanfei Qi

The In-containment Refueling Water Storage Tank (IRWST) provides low-pressure safety injection flow for passive CAP1400 Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) during Loss-Of-Coolant-Accident (LOCA) and subsequent Long Term Core Cooling (LTCC). The Passive Residual Heat Removal Heat Exchanger (PRHR HX) and the spargers of Automatic Depressurization System (ADS) stage 1∼3 are submerged in the IRWST. During small break LOCA, heat and mass are delivered through PRHR HX and ADS spargers to IRWST, and IRWST is heated up before its safety injection. However, numerical and experimental investigation has shown that IRWST is not perfect mixing, and thermal stratification exists. During ADS-4/IRWST initiation phase, the temperature of IRWST injection flow is of great importance, and is affected greatly by IRWST simulation method when modeling with system code like RELAP5. In this paper, two different IRWST simulation methods where one use multi channels in horizontal direction while the other use only one, are analyzed for CAP1400 SBLOCA with RE-LAP5, and their effects are compared. Finally, the better method which uses only one channel in horizontal direction is recommended.


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