Outline of air-cooling thermal transient test facility

not registered; not registered; Uno, Tetsuro*

A new test facility "Air-Cooling Thermal Transient Test Facility" (ATTF) was constructed at O-arai Engineering Center. This test facility is utilized, in the first place, for evaluating the strength of outlet tube-sheets of steam generators of FBR Plants. The objectives of the tube-sheet model tests are as follows. The first is to investigate and evaluate the strain concentration in the plastic region. The second is to confirm the adequacy of the design criteria for the prototype reactor MONJU. The third is to confirm the safety margin for failure incorporated in the design evaluation methods. ATTF can impose severe thermal loadings (only cold shock) on the test specimens. The facility produces compressed air (Max. 35kg/cmG) by two large-sized compressors, and stores it in a storage tank (about 60m). After a test specimen is heated up to the aimed temperature the compressed air passes through the test specimens quickly by opening the valve to apply cold shock and is released in the atmosphere. Each main loop pipe is 8 inches in diameter and the flow rate is max. 10kg/s in compressed air. The most severe down thermal transient condition is from 550C to 150C (for tube-sheet model) in about 4 min. The test section can be modified for various kinds of structures, which should be air-tight and have the maximum pressure of 8kg/cmG. The facility is operated automatically by two sequencer controllers. One of the main features of ATTF is the adoption of compressed air instead of sodium as coolant. By using compressed air, various kinds of sensors which can not be used in the sodium environment can be used in ATTF; particularly strain gages can be used effectively to obtain strain distribution for thermal transient condition, and the location as well as the mode of failure of test specimens can be recognized easily through the detection of crack initiation and the observation of crack growth. ATTF is expected to be a powerful ...