A Recirculation Line Break Loss of Coolant Accident is a design basis event which must be considered for stress analyses of Boiling Water Reactor internal components such as Jet Pumps and Core Shrouds. This event causes acoustic and fluid drag loads on BWR internals. These loads must also be considered for fracture mechanics evaluations performed to assess allowable operating periods for flaws detected during inservice inspections. Acoustic loads methods generally utilized in the past have been 1-D or simplified 2-D models of the domain of interest. In a few cases sophisticated thermal-hydraulic codes are used to obtain the acoustic response to the LOCA event. The present paper describes the results of a benchmark study performed to validate use of acoustic finite elements available in many commercial general purpose finite element analysis software packages. Use of FEA to predict acoustic loading in the BWR is benchmarked against blow down testing performed by Pacific Northwest Laboratory on a simulated light water reactor vessel. The results of the benchmark demonstrate that use of acoustic FEA yields conservative results and can be considered a viable method for BWR LOCA acoustic load predictions.
EFFECT OF LIGHT-WATER REACTOR FUEL ROD FAILURE ON THE AREA AVAILABLE FOR EMERGENCY COOLANT FLOW FOLLOWING A LOSS-OF-COOLANT ACCIDENT.
